not a whale, but have spent a significant amount...please take notice Kabam

Let me start off by saying I really love this game. I haven't been playing that long, but I've done my best to get as close to the top tiers in as little time as possible. I'm not a whale by any means, but please....do check my purchase history and you'll see that I've spent a significant amount. The only reason I say this is because I would like you (Kabam) to read what I have to say and take it seriously.

The way you guys are handling this game is seriously disturbing. I am a software engineer, I've worked for game companies, a fortune 5 company, internet service providers, and more. You guys are by far the worst company I've ever seen at interacting with it's customer base. Since I started playing about 9 months ago, I've seen the player base get more and more upset with each patch you release.

Initially my thoughts were that the community simply doesn't understand your position...as I said I write software for a living and I know how hard it is to release software that gets run across such a wide variety of devices. I know that some of the bugs that pop up were likely not things you were testing for....many of them seem like unintended side-effects, and I can understand that. For the life of me though, I can not understand the way in which you are handling this phone overheating/lag issue that many of us are experiencing. Fixing this should be your first priority...not releasing new champs, new content, and changing existing game modes. I'm lucky in that my experience has been a warm phone, extremely poor battery performance, and in-game lag. I can at least still play arena as long as I constantly have my phone connected to a charger.

My biggest issue has been the extreme lag that happens at times...you guys have told us the best rewards in the game come from Alliance Wars, however this has become probably the worst part of the game lately. We're still waiting for a fix, and yet instead what we got was an extreme ramp-up in the difficulty of the AW maps with the new mini-boss system. Instead of AW being fun because it is a challenge, it has become frustrating because it feels like you're rolling the dice any time you go into a fight now. I feel bad for the people who are experiencing worse problems than me.

As a player, it feels like you don't appreciate us at all with the lack of communication on your part. Yes, many of the people in the community come at you in a way that must be extremely frustrating to deal with...but try to have some empathy and see where they are coming from. We just want the game to work well...there have been times when the game was working probably as close to flawlessly as it could...but the last few months have been about as far from that as I have seen since I started playing. Instead of taking some time to address the current batch of issues, you decided to bring back the game mode that has probably caused more problems than any...dungeons...and I simply cannot understand your thought process here. The community is already frustrated with the existing issues, and now we're back to the same outages that plagued the game during the last set of Infinity Dungeons.

And here's the thing...I'm not saying you really owe us a bunch of free stuff to make up for it. Sure, that's one option...but honestly I think the community would be fine with getting nothing if you made a serious attempt to apologize for the recent issues and made it clear what you were doing to try and rectify them. This attempt at a 'summoner appreciation' event is pretty much just blowing up in your face. After all of the recent problems, it seems like a slap in the face and that you guys are simply out of touch with your own community. This event is significantly worse than the previous years 'appreciation' events, and your communication hasn't improved either. There's basically nothing offered to appease those of us who are done with most of the content and in higher levels of Alliance Wars. Level 1 potions? You need to take a deep breath and ask yourselves what you were even thinking...things like that are why people feel insulted.

The level of disdain for your company that I see on this forum, reddit, and in my alliance chats should concern you. It should concern you that your points of contact with the community are a running joke to all of us. It should concern you that people like me, who have a good size disposable income, find less and less reason to spend any of it on this game as each day passes. As part of this community, I'm begging you to take a look at the way you are handling us and the game that so many of us enjoy. We're not happy, and poor attempts to win us over with things like this 'summer appreciation' event aren't doing the trick for you...we do not feel appreciated and you should want to fix that. You should want us to feel real appreciation from your company, so in turn we would want to open our wallets for you. For now, mine is closed.

Comments

gannicus0830

I agree wholeheartedly with what you just said. It was eloquent, objective, and accurate.
Sadly though, I fear it will fall on deaf ears, as many before you have said similar things and absolutely nothing has come of it. It's likely you won't even get one of their canned, pre-typed generic responses to this even if they do take the time to read it.

The simple fact is this; they don't care about a happy player community, they care only about a SPENDING player community. As long as they are turning a profit, they have zero reason to "wow" us, as another forum member said in a recent thread.
The only way to get them to give a damn is to turn their black line red, so to speak. But as long as people are spending money, they will remain deaf and indifferent.

epoplive

gannicus0830 wrote: »

I agree wholeheartedly with what you just said. It was eloquent, objective, and accurate.
Sadly though, I fear it will fall on deaf ears, as many before you have said similar things and absolutely nothing has come of it. It's likely you won't even get one of their canned, pre-typed generic responses to this even if they do take the time to read it.

The simple fact is this; they don't care about a happy player community, they care only about a SPENDING player community. As long as they are turning a profit, they have zero reason to "wow" us, as another forum member said in a recent thread.
The only way to get them to give a damn is to turn their black line red, so to speak. But as long as people are spending money, they will remain deaf and indifferent.

That's the thing though, I am part of their 'spending' player base...and I'm not talking about $5 here and there. I've spent enough in the short time that I've been playing that they should be concerned about keeping people like myself happy. I've stopped dumping as much money as I was into the game, and seen the same from other people in my alliance. And the reality is, you can't only keep the whales happy. If the majority of the community is unhappy and becomes less and less engaged, there's less reason for the whales to keep spending to stay on top...which means they will start spending less as well. Kabam needs to take a hard look at what's going on and see the big picture instead of focusing on short term gains.

Colinwhitworth69

I wonder whether the comments on this forum represent the overall MCOC community or, as is the case with most forums, just the squeakiest wheels?

I'm fine with the game. Sure, it has some issues, but pretty rare considering that I feel like I am playing this game all the time.

JimmyB

Kabam has over 40 job openings from Texas to Vancouver please apply and help them create a stable playing game.

Nick_Caine_32

Colinwhitworth69 wrote: »

I wonder whether the comments on this forum represent the overall MCOC community or, as is the case with most forums, just the squeakiest wheels?

I'm fine with the game. Sure, it has some issues, but pretty rare considering that I feel like I am playing this game all the time.

You just told us yesterday you are a new player. The people bringing these issues up have been here for over 3 years and all kinds of issues in the game. Do you play another game that has multiple server outages a day?

thegrimmling

Lol, just give everyone a 5 star champ crystal that cannot be gifted and call it a day.

Or a 4 star awakening gem.

Blax4ever

@epoplive

As another poster commented the concerns with the way Kabam runs the game have been have been here for years now.

To Kabam’s credit they have been making changes and they have been communicating more.

IMO the problem is Kabam’s gaming philosophy they view the game differently than the community does this is where the largest disconnect is.

However again to give Kabam credit, I think the AQ changes are good, it’s something that has been talked about in the forums, it’s not the way players have asked but it’s close.

As I’ve said before, I don’t play much anymore maybe twice a month. I used to be a spender about 100-200 dollars a month. I haven’t spent a dime since Xmas.

I may come back when Kabam finishes overhauling the game. We shall see.

SgtSlaughter78

Brilliant post OP. Agree completely.

I also have spent, less a whale more a dolphin I guess but still not insignificant amounts. I’ve never known another scenario like this, it genuinely feels like we’re being trolled at times.

borntohula

One of the most sincere and cohesive posts I’ve read in a while. Although we’re in entirely different businesses, as far as this game goes, I’m in the exact same spending boat. And, like you, I’m trying my hardest to locate that lifeline that convinces me it’s worth to keep spending. That gets harder and harder each week. Which is weird, because I can both afford and enjoy spending (shoot me, all ye Maoists).

For me, the fact that no in-game warning with respect to the overheating was ever issued - regardless what caused it and who was to blame, that seems common courtesy to me - almost severed that lifeline. The way Kabam decided to compensate for that (and a ton of other) issue(s) just might have unraveled the last few threads.

The question whether I, and other baffled ‘dolphin’ customers that currently feel adrift, can still be reeled in, remains open. But I’d venture it’d take some real fancy bait. Such as a functional game, and offers that are slightly less arrogant than the one that runs concurrent to the (cough) compensation/appreciation, which seems tailored to an entirely different demographic.

For now, I’ll just float along, zenny driftwood style.

Shaun01

In all honesty, any new player cannot understand what 99% of the complaints are within the community. There was a time in the beginning of the game that Kabam was transparent and apologetic when outages occurred. A time when you would open your in game mail and it was filled with items along with a message saying Sorry, the game hasn't been performing up to the
Collectors standards. A time when SA was a month long and filled with appreciation. These are all things that new players would know nothing about. It's actually a sad state that the norm for anyone new IS constant lag, outages, and constant unappreciation.

Kabam Lyra

Hi epoplive!

I’m glad you enjoy the game and appreciate you taking the time to come to the forums to share your thoughts. I’m sorry to hear you are disappointed with some issues lately and the Summoner Appreciation event.

With relation to the performance issues mentioned, you said it well in that it is difficult to release software for such a wide variety of devices. We are always looking to identify trends in reported lag from players, which is why we request that players contribute to our static threads about the issue and share important details like their device information and operating system. As a software engineer, you’ll understand that there are a myriad of factors at play when it comes to optimizing a game’s performance. Data directly from the game, info provided by players as well as from our own internal testing all go into consideration as we look for ways to continue to improve game performance. But, I hope you understand, there is not likely to be a “one size fits all” solution for every device that a player might want to use to play the game. But when an issue is affecting you personally, I understand that it is frustrating.

Also, it is a bit of a false dichotomy to say that performance improvements should be made in lieu of any new game content. The teams dedicated to areas such as character and content design have a different area of expertise and will continue to develop new and exciting content for players. This in no way takes away from the teams that are hard at work on areas of the game that more directly affect the issues you raise.

We hope this helps you to understand the situation a bit better. We do appreciate constructive feedback and are always looking for opportunities to improve communication!