**WINTER OF WOE - BONUS OBJECTIVE POINT**
As previously announced, the team will be distributing an additional point toward milestones to anyone who completed the Absorbing Man fight in the first step of the Winter of Woe.
This point will be distributed at a later time as it requires the team to pull and analyze data.
The timeline has not been set, but work has started.
There is currently an issue where some Alliances are are unable to find a match in Alliance Wars, or are receiving Byes without getting the benefits of the Win. We will be adjusting the Season Points of the Alliances that are affected within the coming weeks, and will be working to compensate them for their missed Per War rewards as well.

Additionally, we are working to address an issue where new Members of an Alliance are unable to place Defenders for the next War after joining. We are working to address this, but it will require a future update.

Communication Issues & Opportunities

DragonfeiDragonfei Posts: 260 ★★
I made sure to read the forum rules thoroughly before making this post, so I have strived to ensure that I am breaking none of them - because I truly believe this is a discussion we need to have.

I direct this to the players specifically, and I would ask that we try to keep this thread as civil as possible so it stays up.

I believe a point most of us agree on is that communication (in a variety of capacities) has been an issue going back several months. My post specifically goes back to the changes regarding Archangel, and to the AQ compensation that was posted yesterday. In both cases, a moderator made a statement that was taken to heart by the players, only for that statement to be contradicted by the actions taken at a later date.

In one case, days, in another case, months.

Both of these instances had clear communication opportunities. There have been multiple other communication issues, but these both reflect a concern that I have that I am curious to hear other opinions on.

When an employee misspeaks, it's never an easy thing to handle. As a manager, I've had to handle it myself and correct the behavior, and also address the miscommunication to lend clarity to everyone who might have been impacted by it. People are going to misspeak, it's simply going to happen. What concerns me is that the second step - someone addressing the misspeaking and clarifying it to ensure everyone is on the same page, is not happening. That continues to foster upset and anger.

Here is how I believe both of these instances should have been handled -

The archangel change. An employee should have come forward as soon as players raised the concern (pointing out a previous post by a moderator) and it was found to be a valid one. They should have clarified that either the first employee misspoke (which we, then, as the players, have to understand that mistakes will happen sometimes), or that there was a fundamental meta change in the game that required the alteration.

The AQ compensation. When players pointed out the clear disparity in the statements initially made that were ambiguous (play what you want), and then the compensation offered, this should also have been addressed by coming forward with either a clarification that the moderator misspoke, or that a reassessing of compensation will take place to reflect the ambiguity that was given to the player base.

Both of these, though the Archangel one in particular, go back to a fundamental concept of changing anything. People, inherently, have to understand the why to be willing to accept change. They might not like it, or think it is the right change (and in gaming, that is almost a certainty), but a change that is driven by logic will receive understanding from most. However, there is a flip side to that - which is that a 'why' might not be detailed enough, or seen as good enough. In these instances, describing the level of detail wanted becomes invaluable to the people doing the communicating and something that we, as the players, need to be better about articulating.

The question I ask to the community to keep this conversation constructive is this - What is a communication issue you have seen in the past 6 months, and what, in your opinion, could have been done to alleviate the issue with the community?

tl;dr - Communication issues are driven by a lack of players receiving a 'why' behind changes. Less ambiguity, more detail when it's possible, and explaining the reasoning behind it. Also, when a moderator misspeaks, don't sweep it under the rug - own up to it, address it, and, if needed, fix it. Lastly, what's an example of a miscommunication in the past six months you have seen, and what, in your opinion, could have been done to deliver the message more effectively?

Comments

  • Hello69Hello69 Posts: 15
    I love you
  • TheReverendTheReverend Posts: 126
    Thank you for sharing! We are beating a dead horse though im afraid. Either the staff is overworked and overwhelmed or they are puppets and their hands are tied in my opinion
  • TheReverendTheReverend Posts: 126
    The ammount of added pressure the new minis put on AW will have a negative effect on the player base and the revenue eventually. The ammount of money spent on getting and ranking champs for war, and the ammount of money spent in attack phase of war should have been enough AW revenue. The 2 Alliances fighting to win was creating enough revenue soley on avoiding deaths. there was no need to make that aspect of war harder in my opinion.
  • DragonfeiDragonfei Posts: 260 ★★
    The ammount of added pressure the new minis put on AW will have a negative effect on the player base and the revenue eventually. The ammount of money spent on getting and ranking champs for war, and the ammount of money spent in attack phase of war should have been enough AW revenue. The 2 Alliances fighting to win was creating enough revenue soley on avoiding deaths. there was no need to make that aspect of war harder in my opinion.

    While I do agree with some aspects, this does take away from the original point of the post - which is addressing communication opportunities. Do you have any suggestions for how to make that better?
  • TheReverendTheReverend Posts: 126
    Yes, send us all a link to a poll or allow us to write an essay to express our opinions on new significant changes to the contest at least 14 days preferably 30 days before the updates are implemented. Major changes such as removing AW diversity for example should be given a 30-90 day notice and still be optional based on community support.
  • TheReverendTheReverend Posts: 126
    Those vacancies are probably a decent portion of the staff capacity. But then again what if those vacancies are just a small fraction of the team? It could go either way. The state of the game as you already stated indicates that those vacancies are probably more than just a small fraction of the team. Thanks again for your informative post!
  • DragonfeiDragonfei Posts: 260 ★★
    Those vacancies are probably a decent portion of the staff capacity. But then again what if those vacancies are just a small fraction of the team? It could go either way. The state of the game as you already stated indicates that those vacancies are probably more than just a small fraction of the team. Thanks again for your informative post!

    If they're even true, and if they're even for the MCOC portion of Kabam. Both of which we do not know and are simply making guesses at.

    Even if they are true, that's not what I want to focus on the post - because even if they only have one person handling communication (which is clearly not the case with multiple forum moderators), there can still be more consistency in their approach and how they handle things, which is why I made this post for discussion.

    It's specific to the approach they are taking to communication - not the reasons behind why there are communication issues, since we can only speculate about those, and that that is against forum rules.
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