Feels like Plasmas telling us to put are helmet back on and get back in line. it's the Internet for Vaders sake. We're gonna troll and complain. The more you tighten your grip, Jesse, the more players will resent you.
Come back to the light side Jesse, its not too late, take off that helmet, you don't need it.
The only reason I could be okay with an announcement such as this. Is the fact that this is forum for the game made by the games developers with a link within the game leading you here. otherwise this is bull sheet. You don't want a real opinions just praise. Feels like Plasmas telling us to put are helmet back on and get back in line. it's the Internet for Vaders sake. We're gonna troll and complain. The more you tighten your grip, Jesse, the more players will resent you.
Praise EA and you post won't be deleted.
Complain and your post will vanish.
I feel player complaints are a great source of feedback and can be taken constructively.
This.
I don't think Jesse realizes how we interpret this. It's basically "back off unless you post something we are okay with reading."
You can pretend the players aren't frustrated and ignore their criticisms (as crudely worded as they often are) but you undermine your job as a community manager when you're unable to be the voice of reason and instead choose to ignore those posts. We all get frustrated, you should be able to filter out the players often harsh criticisms and identify the issue their talking about calmly rather then dismissing it because you don't want to read it.
If you can't establish a dialogue then give the proper warnings, but don't dismiss because you don't want to read it...
@O8c8h80, I agree. But yesterday I wrote a extermely polite message titled "derailed conversations". In it I asked for help regarding this, as just a few trolls have derailed a large number of conversations, resulting in closing topics that the community valued and where there where opinions I respect such as WhiPIT or Qeltar among many others.
Thanks for your feedback and discussion about this post.
I want to reinforce something about the EA/CG criticism discussion:
The point of this request is that we'd like to make sure people are discussing complaints they have with the game in a civil, constructive, and properly-scoped way.
What do I mean?
Civil - No insulting, no attacking, no personal attacks, and no assumptions about motives (IE "devs did this because they're greedy and don't care about players" - that's not true and it's just ridiculous.)
Constructive - Please describe the problem as thoroughly as you can. I'll let you in on a little secret about how we run the game - We have daily meetings in which we discuss issues with the game, and we use often use detailed customer service tickets and forum posts as guides for how to reproduce possible bugs. Or how to improve our customer service experience. Or just how to handle issues (like the Barriss) in the future. We genuinely want to know, if we made a mistake, what could we have done better? If a character ability doesn't appear to be working correctly, how can you tell? What do you think it should do? etc. etc. Remember that even though we have been working on this game for a long time and we're (theoretically ) Professional Game Developers, we still can't find every bug and issue as well as thousands of players can. Help us help you!
Properly scoped - Honestly, this one annoys me the most. Tying a complaint about the game to the greater media narrative about EA is easy, and it's always wrong. As I've said before, there's no EA Corporate Hivemind. Capital Games is a relatively small studio in Sacramento, and we are remarkably autonomous. Capital Games wants credit for its wins, but we also want credit for our mistakes as well. And if you assume that someone in the 70-ish-person core CG team made a decision you don't like, you might feel like it's more likely that you can have a real conversation with us and we'll listen to you... and you'd be right!
Remember - we're a small studio, we make our own decisions, and we want to hear what you think about them. Talk to us like we're regular people, and we'll be happy to have a real conversation or discussion about the issue.
Thanks for your feedback and discussion about this post.
I want to reinforce something about the EA/CG criticism discussion:
The point of this request is that we'd like to make sure people are discussing complaints they have with the game in a civil, constructive, and properly-scoped way.
What do I mean?
Civil - No insulting, no attacking, no personal attacks, and no assumptions about motives (IE "devs did this because they're greedy and don't care about players" - that's not true and it's just ridiculous.)
Constructive - Please describe the problem as thoroughly as you can. I'll let you in on a little secret about how we run the game - We have daily meetings in which we discuss issues with the game, and we use often use detailed customer service tickets and forum posts as guides for how to reproduce possible bugs. Or how to improve our customer service experience. Or just how to handle issues (like the Barriss) in the future. We genuinely want to know, if we made a mistake, what could we have done better? If a character ability doesn't appear to be working correctly, how can you tell? What do you think it should do? etc. etc. Remember that even though we have been working on this game for a long time and we're (theoretically ) Professional Game Developers, we still can't find every bug and issue as well as thousands of players can. Help us help you!
Properly scoped - Honestly, this one annoys me the most. Tying a complaint about the game to the greater media narrative about EA is easy, and it's always wrong. As I've said before, there's no EA Corporate Hivemind. Capital Games is a relatively small studio in Sacramento, and we are remarkably autonomous. Capital Games wants credit for its wins, but we also want credit for our mistakes as well. And if you assume that someone in the 70-ish-person core CG team made a decision you don't like, you might feel like it's more likely that you can have a real conversation with us and we'll listen to you... and you'd be right!
Remember - we're a small studio, we make our own decisions, and we want to hear what you think about them. Talk to us like we're regular people, and we'll be happy to have a real conversation or discussion about the issue.
-Aaron
Ty for bringing some order to the wild west here at this forum. Great game and we are all very excited to see what's new in the coming weeks and months!
Civility doesn't seem like too much to ask. You get more flies with honey... (actually, not so. See xkcd) ... and no one wants to debate with people who only want an argument.
I find though that a lot of the anger posts start happening when people feel they're not being heard. We know that you guys can't personally respond to every post, but a little more activity in the threads would help I think. Engaging the reasonably crafted complaints and answering the questions about some of the mysterious game elements would probably help quell the masses.
My ally code: 296-673-769. Wish we could have more than 35.
Big thanks Aaron for your post. It honestly is hard to know sometimes how much interaction you can hope for with the GD's and I'll venture a guess that several players come from other games with disappointing experiences behind them? That's when you may feel that it's easier to just vent about the big anonymous corporations in a forum. I hope that your post helps dispel such attitudes and bring out some creativity out of the community instead!
As I've said before, there's no EA Corporate Hivemind. Capital Games is a relatively small studio in Sacramento, and we are remarkably autonomous. Capital Games wants credit for its wins, but we also want credit for our mistakes as well.
Fair enough. But then if this is the case, why is there so little response from CG to issues that are constantly raised on this forum? Yes, I know it's a holiday period right now, but I'm speaking more generally.
Jesse has an "EA" tag and appears to be a forum admin. Is there no community manager for this game at CG, even part time, who could speak for the company more regularly?
As just one example: crystal subscriptions. Why were the 21-day subscriptions removed in favor of 7-day ones that can only be purchased once a month? When every single person I know preferred the 21-day subscriptions?
Why are there never any sales or reasonably-priced packs (other than the one-time ones when you are starting) for people who can't spend hundreds on the game?
Why are there no game modes for people who want to play more, short of paying exponentially-increasing crystal charges? Even just for fun and no rewards?
What is on the horizon? What is being planned?
These are the sorts of questions you guys should be able to answer, not EA, but I don't hear much forthcoming.
ETA: Where are the fixes to the many, many bugs that the community has identified over the last month since launch? There have been a handful, but only a few.
So as an example (hehehe) a post about how terrible Mace windu is is not allowed? Meaning, we cant all rally behind the fact hes as worthless as worthless gets in a toon and a major buff (prob ability changes too) are despiratly needed.
This would be frowned upon even tho MANY would argue its likely the most needed character balanceing currently?????
(Not to mention this is a toon that loads of ppl bought only to find out hes really good for nothing at all since hes a worse tank then most attackers/healars and is so bad at other roles he is not even worth filling a spot on ANY team)
^^^^^this is constructive and helpful or viewed as unacceptible???^^^^^^
Thanks for your feedback and discussion about this post.
I want to reinforce something about the EA/CG criticism discussion:
The point of this request is that we'd like to make sure people are discussing complaints they have with the game in a civil, constructive, and properly-scoped way.
What do I mean?
Civil - No insulting, no attacking, no personal attacks, and no assumptions about motives (IE "devs did this because they're greedy and don't care about players" - that's not true and it's just ridiculous.)
Constructive - Please describe the problem as thoroughly as you can. I'll let you in on a little secret about how we run the game - We have daily meetings in which we discuss issues with the game, and we use often use detailed customer service tickets and forum posts as guides for how to reproduce possible bugs. Or how to improve our customer service experience. Or just how to handle issues (like the Barriss) in the future. We genuinely want to know, if we made a mistake, what could we have done better? If a character ability doesn't appear to be working correctly, how can you tell? What do you think it should do? etc. etc. Remember that even though we have been working on this game for a long time and we're (theoretically ) Professional Game Developers, we still can't find every bug and issue as well as thousands of players can. Help us help you!
Properly scoped - Honestly, this one annoys me the most. Tying a complaint about the game to the greater media narrative about EA is easy, and it's always wrong. As I've said before, there's no EA Corporate Hivemind. Capital Games is a relatively small studio in Sacramento, and we are remarkably autonomous. Capital Games wants credit for its wins, but we also want credit for our mistakes as well. And if you assume that someone in the 70-ish-person core CG team made a decision you don't like, you might feel like it's more likely that you can have a real conversation with us and we'll listen to you... and you'd be right!
Remember - we're a small studio, we make our own decisions, and we want to hear what you think about them. Talk to us like we're regular people, and we'll be happy to have a real conversation or discussion about the issue.
-Aaron
I feel like I should be thanking you just for replying, which I realise is ridiculous, but is the result of many unresponded topics, most importantly bugs.
This lack of feedback or community management is why players will make negative presumptions about the motives of the game developers.
The fact that you state that it is rediculous to assume the game designers are greedy is not backed up by action. All we see are overpriced macro transactions, and prefer to assume greed to incompetence. Why do we assume greed?
High priced packs
Disproportionate in game economics
No disclosure on hero stats or in game mechanics
Many bugs affecting game play and purchases
No patch notes on updates
Poor and dismissive customer service directing paying customers to this forum
Post by community manager about sensorship
What does this look like from a customer point of view?
Burn em and churn em cause there's plenty more Star Wars fans where these guys came from (and truth be told there is).
Easy to say you want to own your mistakes and glad to hear you say it, but again, where are the actions or even words to support this?
Even the mediocre gift for Barriss buyers was disproportionate to the impact the nerf had on paying customers, and there was no acknowledgment of what CG actually did wrong, and no feedback on how it will be done better in the future, so spenders are left to assume it can and will happen again.
I truly look forward to any response, and genuinely hope to see actions behind your words.
@Keaven@Qeltar@Abyss@Rolf and many others have all brought up very excellent points. In fact I think they took the words right out of my mouth. Lol
@CG_AaronNemoyten I know you and everyone else in Capital Games are trying their best to deliver us as much content as you can and it can become quite pressurizing in that sense.. And I know that u guys are not those bad wall street broker trope kind of guys that we all know thanks to movies. So yeah you guys are trying your best and that's great. In fact we are significantly appreciative of you whenever you're around to reply to our posts and hey! That's the thing you see?, we don't want to be left in the dark whenever we bring up our issues.
Granted not everyone will be able to do a good job of crafting their problems and sentence structures into their posts and threads in a "civil manner" but that doesn't mean that they had any malicious intents. In fact, the people seeking help are just desperate and yeah who wouldn't be, right? And if they react a certain way then it's perhaps normal to do so. It is the human thing to do so.
I'm glad you brought this up because like any relationship, communication is important. We got to be able to work as a team and as a community if we want to truly make this work and as the saying goes, we shouldn't just be talking the talk but we should be able to walk the walk. It goes both ways tbh.
Have a blessed one and Merry Xmas!
This might be a stupid question but how do I know I submitted a ticket? I thought I did to get my name changed (to something specific) in the game but I can't find any evidence that it wentirely through. I selected "features" as my item, since it's not really a bug, but does it need to be a bug to get noticed?
I feel like I should be thanking you just for replying, which I realise is ridiculous, but is the result of many unresponded topics, most importantly bugs.
I think your standards are a bit high. Between Jesse and myself, we've got 200 posts in the last month. Maybe we need more, but how much? I think if you look at our posts, we share a lot about the game and respond to a lot of really specific questions and posts. I'm also active on the SWGOH subreddit, which isn't an official social outlet for the game.
Plus, your bullet point complaints:
High priced packs
We are still offering crystal packs at all price points. You can spend just a few dollars if you want. We understand that the more expensive packs aren't for everyone.
Disproportionate in game economics
I'm not sure what this means, but I'm sure many would disagree with you.
No disclosure on hero stats or in game mechanics
Stats are available in-game. Explaining mechanics - we could do a better job of that, and we're working on documenting mechanics.
Many bugs affecting game play and purchases
If we waited to fix every bug before releasing it, the game wouldn't be out until Episode VIII. When we do find bugs, we triage them and try to fix the major bugs as soon as possible. Since the game's official release, we've already released one client update, which was mostly bug fixes, and four content/data updates, which all included bug fixes. I think if you compared SWGOH with similar games, you'd find it to be a remarkably stable and consistent game.
No patch notes on updates
We've released patch notes for most updates.
Poor and dismissive customer service directing paying customers to this forum
We've addressed this already multiple times.
Post by community manager about sensorship
This thread? We're trying to define what makes a healthy online community. I think you'll find similar policies on just about any official forum, or even on unofficial forums too. No sane online community tolerates excessive negativity.
I'm sorry Keaven but even when you do have legitimate complaints, you're ignoring our responses and the effort that we've made to address the problems that we've already acknowledged. I appreciate that you're trying to hold us accountable. I really do. But stuff like this...
Burn em and churn em cause there's plenty more Star Wars fans where these guys came from.
I could be misinterpreting Keaven's point about high price packs, but I believe it to be referring to character packs and not crystal packs. I do agree with him if it is about character packs. Perhaps rotating sales of individual characters every few days-week at certain price points between $3-$15 (based on number of stars, how powerful the character is, how newly released, etc) would be more manageable for people, and give people opportunities to fill up their gaps in their squad when it's available. For example with the tank challenge I was stuck with 2 tanks for the longest time and was unable to do the higher tier challenge.
Spending $100 for two more tanks with the new pack was not really something that I wanted to do, but I would have easily spent some to get the individual characters in order to supplement my squad. Maybe 1 light character and 1 dark character which changes every so often.
I feel this would make collectors happy as well as casual gamers who don't want to gamble on random packs. No offense but spending $20 on crystals and getting nothing you want or find useful at all is a great disincentive to want to spend more.
As far as the communication aspect, I realize that it is unfeasible to answer everyone's questions to the extent that everyone wants, but even the occasional "this is a great topic, I'll be sure to bring this up with the team", or "great feedback, keep it up" on hot button threads at least give the impression to the community that you are in fact absorbing some of the conversations. I think the community wants to see you guys as "one of us" in regards to just being an active community member. It might also lend itself to realize that the conversation is monitored and to keep people perhaps a little more civil.
Some issues such as (as far as I know) useless itemization on characters hasn't been clearly answered. Thank you for acknowledging in game mechanics though -- But Health Steal, Potency on non-offensive moves, Special damage on characters without offensive attacks, damage multipliers on abilities (ie chewy's damage) could be demystified a little, or stated why its there, or what the intent is if it won't be changed.
The community doesn't have the answers to some of these questions so we only can rely on the dev team to shed insight.
Thank you for responding though! It really is nice to have that two-way communication.
Aaron, I don't want to sound unappreciative, because I really do love that you guys are talking to us and communication is opening up.
However, there have not been patchnotes with most updates. From your post, it sounds like there have been five updates to the game, however there has only been one set of patch notes released.
We are still offering crystal packs at all price points. You can spend just a few dollars if you want. We understand that the more expensive packs aren't for everyone.
Crystal packs, yes. Character packs, no. This is a problem for us but also for you, because it makes it seem like this is only a game for people who want to spend hundreds of dollars.
Also, the subscriptions. Everyone overwhelmingly wanted the 21-day subscriptions. You removed them in favor of the 7-day ones, and I have seen no response on this issue from CG/EA at all.
In addition, nearly all games run generous events, giveaways and sales during the holidays. Maybe you guys were too busy to make a real holiday event because the game is new (clearly, since the event is just doing the same stuff we already do.) Would it have been that hard to have some extra daily giveaways, or run a sale on crystal packs, or something?
The more generosity you show to the community, the more the community will reciprocate. This has been shown in many games. It's goodwill and good business.
I'm not sure what this means, but I'm sure many would disagree with you.
If you aren't sure what it means, how could you be sure many would disagree, other than the general truth that everything has someone who disagrees with it?
If we waited to fix every bug before releasing it, the game wouldn't be out until Episode VIII. When we do find bugs, we triage them and try to fix the major bugs as soon as possible. Since the game's official release, we've already released one client update, which was mostly bug fixes, and four content/data updates, which all included bug fixes. I think if you compared SWGOH with similar games, you'd find it to be a remarkably stable and consistent game.
Here I will agree: the game is very stable, and I actually have remarked on this. It has literally never crashed (though it's gotten stuck a few times when my connection became poor, requiring me to force-close it). This is a major achievement for a new product and you guys deserve a lot of credit for it.
That said, there are numerous bugs with the UI, with gameplay, and most importantly, characters. The character bugs are a big deal because they seriously impact team design and PvP. Some examples:
- Still no answer on why debuff skills like those of Asajj aren't working properly.
- Barriss, whom you nerfed in a major way, has few skills and one of them seems to do nothing.
- Sidious, who was already being used by nearly everyone in PvP, got a logic-defying massive buff that has never been adequately explained. As a result, it is literally a rarity for me to find a team not using him now. Over 90% of teams have him, and that's a clear sign of imbalance.
- And saving the worst for last, Leia, who buffs her entire team 100% of the time when she shouldn't, and seems to attack with a frequency that defies probability. She's being exploited on many of the top teams for this reason. People have been asking for clarification on this for weeks and not a word.
There are many others. I know you guys just launched, and there was a big movie, and it's the holidays. But come January, please focus on the bugs? We'd all be grateful.
This hasn't been done consistently, which is what leads to threads speculating about "stealth changes" to areas such as GW.
Also, people keep wondering about why new players show up at the top of their PvP ladders suddenly. A definitive answer on whether or not you guys are merging servers would be useful.
Agreed. But there has been plenty of constructive feedback here as well, and in other threads.
I do appreciate that you post here. There are some games where the devs and producers are never heard from. I thank you for that, despite the above criticisms.
Happy holidays to you and everyone.
If it wasn't for all the posts about refunds or the "unconstructive" feedback regarding the bariss nerf, I don't think the "gift" (<$5) to compensate those who bought the pack (>$79) would have ever come to pass. Funny how both those subjects or future related ones are now being discouraged lol
Major respect to Qeltar. Totally agree with the character packs vs crystals. Dooku was probably the most generous character pack ever!
Can't beat POE and aren't willing to change strats to defeat him? Cry nerf lol
As this thread get a lot of attention from mods, I just have one important question:
Is there a plan to release the pack-only character by non-premium mean at all, is it like pack-only first for a period of time then wider release or pack only forever?
Just so that I wouldn't hold my breath.
P.S. There should be dev QA thread, just saying...
Major respect to Qeltar. Totally agree with the character packs vs crystals. Dooku was probably the most generous character pack ever!
Thanks. The Dooku pack is deliberate, nearly all games have that. There's a psychology to these addiction-based games that shows that someone who makes an initial early purchase is likely to continue making future purchases. Therefore, they all provide a high-value, low-cost "teaser" package for something like $5 or $10, usually available only when you first start. Then you never see anything that good ever again.
The free bronzium cards every day are similar. They are there solely to give everyone a reason to open the pay store several times a day so they can be tempted to buy other stuff. Sort of like the "loss leader" sales that grocery stores run (selling key items at a loss to get you in the store).
I don't expect to see any more Dooku-like packs. But the current $99 pack goes way too far to the opposite extreme. It's a shame as it is actually costing them as much as us. I will pay for what I feel is a good value, and the "Episode 7 Hype Pack" is not a good value.
(A lot of stuff I'm not going to quote in its entirety but it's good stuff!
Okay I'm going to address as many of these as I can, but I'm not going to quote the entire post because it's really long and it's only a few posts up.
* Crystal packs vs character bundles
Here's the thing. Regardless of what we sell, I think the way you can distinguish that we want the game to be enjoyable for free players or players who might spend twenty bucks a year on the game is that the game is fairly generous with giving out crystals and there are no characters that are only available via direct purchase. And remember, for all the players who will buy the $99.99 pack (or similar), whatever additional content we gain the capacity to create because of the additional revenue will benefit all players. This isn't like the million dollar single-copy Wu Tang Clan album that will only ever be heard by that one guy.
(I guess I could continue with the music analogy, because I think it's amazing that I can listen to most music essentially for free on streaming services, and some people will pay thousands of dollars for limited edition signed vinyl albums and VIP backstage tickets to shows and fifty dollar T-shirts and hundred dollar hoodies... I can still listen to their music for free at the end of the today, and I'm not jealous of the people who spent thousands. I figure, good for them, they're subsidizing the musician to keep creating music that I can enjoy.)
* Subscription pack (7 day vs 21 day)
This is a matter of internal discussion and data. I'm afraid I can't share any more detail than that.
* Unfair economy comment
I admit, I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek when I said that I'm not sure what it means but many would disagree
What I was thinking of though were the mixed messages we get in reviews. Last night I was reading the reviews and I saw, back to back, a review that declared that the game WAS pay to win, followed by a review that said the game WAS NOT pay to win. I'll admit, if you have been playing console games and SWGOH is the first mobile game you ever get into, it might seem "pay to win" at first. But if you've been playing mobile games for years, SWGOH is very, very generous in comparison.
* Various character ability issues
Here's what I'm going to do here. I'm going to ask that, in the new year, Jesse put together a thread JUST for character issues, and I'll lock one of our designers in a room with a laptop and some sandwiches and Diet Pepsi and make them respond to every item with either an explanation or a commitment to fix the bug (if it is a bug) in a future update.
I want to note though, and this isn't an excuse, that for every change we make to a character ability, there's a LOT of testing that needs to happen. So for ongoing issues, what you're seeing most of the time is that something was the lowest priority and was determined too complex to fix and test before the next release.
* Patch notes
We can do better in this area. I'll make sure we have this covered for our next major update.
* Customer service
This is something we've been following up on aggressively since we started receiving complaints. We already had a major logistical bug solved involving ticket priority and the ticket queue for issues submitted through the in-game customer service link. Obviously we need to do more, so we've been following up on the phone support as well.
* Players showing up at the top of PvP ladders
I've never heard a question about merging servers, but I'll answer it here: No.
(Also, you're not really playing on different servers. At least, not in the MMO sense. The PvP leaderboards are separated into smaller groups because it's more fun than competing with millions of people every day. Everybody is playing in the same database though, so for social features you can all see each other.)
If someone jumps to the top of the leaderboard, it's because we use rank-swapping instead of a points system. So someone can jump to the top by some fluke of getting lucky and beating the player at number one. And hey, if they just got lucky, by all means go knock them back down
As this thread get a lot of attention from mods, I just have one important question:
Is there a plan to release the pack-only character by non-premium mean at all, is it like pack-only first for a period of time then wider release or pack only forever?
Just so that I wouldn't hold my breath.
P.S. There should be dev QA thread, just saying...
We'll do dev QA stuff at some point soon.
Chromium Pack exclusive characters... that's a good question. We may rotate some out of being exclusive.
Here's the thing. Regardless of what we sell, I think the way you can distinguish that we want the game to be enjoyable for free players or players who might spend twenty bucks a year on the game is that the game is fairly generous with giving out crystals and there are no characters that are only available via direct purchase.
I agree that the game is pretty generous with in-game currency, and thank you for that.
All I would ask is that you please understand that there are many of us who really, REALLY hate random packs. I left the last game I was playing because everything was in random packs and I got tired of not being able to advance without the equivalent of buying lottery tickets.
People like me want reasonably-priced, interesting packs of characters that can also be leveled up after purchase. There are a few of these offered as you start playing, but then they dry up. The one pack available now, okay, it was for a hyped-up movie, but please go a bit easier on the pricing afterwards.
I'll admit, if you have been playing console games and SWGOH is the first mobile game you ever get into, it might seem "pay to win" at first. But if you've been playing mobile games for years, SWGOH is very, very generous in comparison.
In some ways yes, and in some ways no.
The #1 problem with the game is that because of the escalating energy recharge costs and lack of viable PvP system, there is simply not much to do for most players once they hit cap (which doesn't take long). GW is amazing, fun and I love doing it every day. Beyond that? There's really nothing. I have to use my energy and refills simming for purple pieces and shards, the challenges aren't challenging, and PvP is 30 minutes of sniping at dinnertime.
It's a holiday week, tons of people have a lot of free time, and we're all sitting around watching energy bars recharge. Please, please give us other things to do.
Here's what I'm going to do here. I'm going to ask that, in the new year, Jesse put together a thread JUST for character issues, and I'll lock one of our designers in a room with a laptop and some sandwiches and Diet Pepsi and make them respond to every item with either an explanation or a commitment to fix the bug (if it is a bug) in a future update.
I want to note though, and this isn't an excuse, that for every change we make to a character ability, there's a LOT of testing that needs to happen. So for ongoing issues, what you're seeing most of the time is that something was the lowest priority and was determined too complex to fix and test before the next release.
If someone jumps to the top of the leaderboard, it's because we use rank-swapping instead of a points system. So someone can jump to the top by some fluke of getting lucky and beating the player at number one. And hey, if they just got lucky, by all means go knock them back down
The PvP system needs an overhaul (which I believe you guys are working on).
In the meantime, it would be nice if you couldn't snipe from position 11 to position 2 when you can only go from position 10 to 7.
Thanks for the replies!
ETA one PS: Please get rid of the in-game ads for people who spend $ on the game. They are tacky and we are already supporting this product.
Replies
Come back to the light side Jesse, its not too late, take off that helmet, you don't need it.
I thought this was a forum.
I don't think Jesse realizes how we interpret this. It's basically "back off unless you post something we are okay with reading."
You can pretend the players aren't frustrated and ignore their criticisms (as crudely worded as they often are) but you undermine your job as a community manager when you're unable to be the voice of reason and instead choose to ignore those posts. We all get frustrated, you should be able to filter out the players often harsh criticisms and identify the issue their talking about calmly rather then dismissing it because you don't want to read it.
If you can't establish a dialogue then give the proper warnings, but don't dismiss because you don't want to read it...
If you see a troll try to ignore him/her please.
Thanks for your feedback and discussion about this post.
I want to reinforce something about the EA/CG criticism discussion:
The point of this request is that we'd like to make sure people are discussing complaints they have with the game in a civil, constructive, and properly-scoped way.
What do I mean?
Civil - No insulting, no attacking, no personal attacks, and no assumptions about motives (IE "devs did this because they're greedy and don't care about players" - that's not true and it's just ridiculous.)
Constructive - Please describe the problem as thoroughly as you can. I'll let you in on a little secret about how we run the game - We have daily meetings in which we discuss issues with the game, and we use often use detailed customer service tickets and forum posts as guides for how to reproduce possible bugs. Or how to improve our customer service experience. Or just how to handle issues (like the Barriss) in the future. We genuinely want to know, if we made a mistake, what could we have done better? If a character ability doesn't appear to be working correctly, how can you tell? What do you think it should do? etc. etc. Remember that even though we have been working on this game for a long time and we're (theoretically
Properly scoped - Honestly, this one annoys me the most. Tying a complaint about the game to the greater media narrative about EA is easy, and it's always wrong. As I've said before, there's no EA Corporate Hivemind. Capital Games is a relatively small studio in Sacramento, and we are remarkably autonomous. Capital Games wants credit for its wins, but we also want credit for our mistakes as well. And if you assume that someone in the 70-ish-person core CG team made a decision you don't like, you might feel like it's more likely that you can have a real conversation with us and we'll listen to you... and you'd be right!
Remember - we're a small studio, we make our own decisions, and we want to hear what you think about them. Talk to us like we're regular people, and we'll be happy to have a real conversation or discussion about the issue.
-Aaron
Ty for bringing some order to the wild west here at this forum. Great game and we are all very excited to see what's new in the coming weeks and months!
I find though that a lot of the anger posts start happening when people feel they're not being heard. We know that you guys can't personally respond to every post, but a little more activity in the threads would help I think. Engaging the reasonably crafted complaints and answering the questions about some of the mysterious game elements would probably help quell the masses.
Fair enough. But then if this is the case, why is there so little response from CG to issues that are constantly raised on this forum? Yes, I know it's a holiday period right now, but I'm speaking more generally.
Jesse has an "EA" tag and appears to be a forum admin. Is there no community manager for this game at CG, even part time, who could speak for the company more regularly?
As just one example: crystal subscriptions. Why were the 21-day subscriptions removed in favor of 7-day ones that can only be purchased once a month? When every single person I know preferred the 21-day subscriptions?
Why are there never any sales or reasonably-priced packs (other than the one-time ones when you are starting) for people who can't spend hundreds on the game?
Why are there no game modes for people who want to play more, short of paying exponentially-increasing crystal charges? Even just for fun and no rewards?
What is on the horizon? What is being planned?
These are the sorts of questions you guys should be able to answer, not EA, but I don't hear much forthcoming.
ETA: Where are the fixes to the many, many bugs that the community has identified over the last month since launch? There have been a handful, but only a few.
This would be frowned upon even tho MANY would argue its likely the most needed character balanceing currently?????
(Not to mention this is a toon that loads of ppl bought only to find out hes really good for nothing at all since hes a worse tank then most attackers/healars and is so bad at other roles he is not even worth filling a spot on ANY team)
^^^^^this is constructive and helpful or viewed as unacceptible???^^^^^^
This lack of feedback or community management is why players will make negative presumptions about the motives of the game developers.
The fact that you state that it is rediculous to assume the game designers are greedy is not backed up by action. All we see are overpriced macro transactions, and prefer to assume greed to incompetence. Why do we assume greed?
High priced packs
Disproportionate in game economics
No disclosure on hero stats or in game mechanics
Many bugs affecting game play and purchases
No patch notes on updates
Poor and dismissive customer service directing paying customers to this forum
Post by community manager about sensorship
What does this look like from a customer point of view?
Burn em and churn em cause there's plenty more Star Wars fans where these guys came from (and truth be told there is).
Easy to say you want to own your mistakes and glad to hear you say it, but again, where are the actions or even words to support this?
Even the mediocre gift for Barriss buyers was disproportionate to the impact the nerf had on paying customers, and there was no acknowledgment of what CG actually did wrong, and no feedback on how it will be done better in the future, so spenders are left to assume it can and will happen again.
I truly look forward to any response, and genuinely hope to see actions behind your words.
Guild: Fear The Boot
To me this is more than reasonable. Speak in an adult manner about issues. Intelligent debate not mindless banter and attack.
@CG_AaronNemoyten I know you and everyone else in Capital Games are trying their best to deliver us as much content as you can and it can become quite pressurizing in that sense.. And I know that u guys are not those bad wall street broker trope kind of guys that we all know thanks to movies. So yeah you guys are trying your best and that's great. In fact we are significantly appreciative of you whenever you're around to reply to our posts and hey! That's the thing you see?, we don't want to be left in the dark whenever we bring up our issues.
Granted not everyone will be able to do a good job of crafting their problems and sentence structures into their posts and threads in a "civil manner" but that doesn't mean that they had any malicious intents. In fact, the people seeking help are just desperate and yeah who wouldn't be, right? And if they react a certain way then it's perhaps normal to do so. It is the human thing to do so.
I'm glad you brought this up because like any relationship, communication is important. We got to be able to work as a team and as a community if we want to truly make this work and as the saying goes, we shouldn't just be talking the talk but we should be able to walk the walk. It goes both ways tbh.
Have a blessed one and Merry Xmas!
I think your standards are a bit high. Between Jesse and myself, we've got 200 posts in the last month. Maybe we need more, but how much? I think if you look at our posts, we share a lot about the game and respond to a lot of really specific questions and posts. I'm also active on the SWGOH subreddit, which isn't an official social outlet for the game.
Plus, your bullet point complaints:
We are still offering crystal packs at all price points. You can spend just a few dollars if you want. We understand that the more expensive packs aren't for everyone.
I'm not sure what this means, but I'm sure many would disagree with you.
Stats are available in-game. Explaining mechanics - we could do a better job of that, and we're working on documenting mechanics.
If we waited to fix every bug before releasing it, the game wouldn't be out until Episode VIII. When we do find bugs, we triage them and try to fix the major bugs as soon as possible. Since the game's official release, we've already released one client update, which was mostly bug fixes, and four content/data updates, which all included bug fixes. I think if you compared SWGOH with similar games, you'd find it to be a remarkably stable and consistent game.
We've released patch notes for most updates.
We've addressed this already multiple times.
This thread? We're trying to define what makes a healthy online community. I think you'll find similar policies on just about any official forum, or even on unofficial forums too. No sane online community tolerates excessive negativity.
I'm sorry Keaven but even when you do have legitimate complaints, you're ignoring our responses and the effort that we've made to address the problems that we've already acknowledged. I appreciate that you're trying to hold us accountable. I really do. But stuff like this...
That's not constructive. (And it's also wrong.)
-Aaron
edited: Used proper quote formatting
I could be misinterpreting Keaven's point about high price packs, but I believe it to be referring to character packs and not crystal packs. I do agree with him if it is about character packs. Perhaps rotating sales of individual characters every few days-week at certain price points between $3-$15 (based on number of stars, how powerful the character is, how newly released, etc) would be more manageable for people, and give people opportunities to fill up their gaps in their squad when it's available. For example with the tank challenge I was stuck with 2 tanks for the longest time and was unable to do the higher tier challenge.
Spending $100 for two more tanks with the new pack was not really something that I wanted to do, but I would have easily spent some to get the individual characters in order to supplement my squad. Maybe 1 light character and 1 dark character which changes every so often.
I feel this would make collectors happy as well as casual gamers who don't want to gamble on random packs. No offense but spending $20 on crystals and getting nothing you want or find useful at all is a great disincentive to want to spend more.
As far as the communication aspect, I realize that it is unfeasible to answer everyone's questions to the extent that everyone wants, but even the occasional "this is a great topic, I'll be sure to bring this up with the team", or "great feedback, keep it up" on hot button threads at least give the impression to the community that you are in fact absorbing some of the conversations. I think the community wants to see you guys as "one of us" in regards to just being an active community member. It might also lend itself to realize that the conversation is monitored and to keep people perhaps a little more civil.
Some issues such as (as far as I know) useless itemization on characters hasn't been clearly answered. Thank you for acknowledging in game mechanics though -- But Health Steal, Potency on non-offensive moves, Special damage on characters without offensive attacks, damage multipliers on abilities (ie chewy's damage) could be demystified a little, or stated why its there, or what the intent is if it won't be changed.
The community doesn't have the answers to some of these questions so we only can rely on the dev team to shed insight.
Thank you for responding though! It really is nice to have that two-way communication.
However, there have not been patchnotes with most updates. From your post, it sounds like there have been five updates to the game, however there has only been one set of patch notes released.
Also, the subscriptions. Everyone overwhelmingly wanted the 21-day subscriptions. You removed them in favor of the 7-day ones, and I have seen no response on this issue from CG/EA at all.
In addition, nearly all games run generous events, giveaways and sales during the holidays. Maybe you guys were too busy to make a real holiday event because the game is new (clearly, since the event is just doing the same stuff we already do.) Would it have been that hard to have some extra daily giveaways, or run a sale on crystal packs, or something?
The more generosity you show to the community, the more the community will reciprocate. This has been shown in many games. It's goodwill and good business.
If you aren't sure what it means, how could you be sure many would disagree, other than the general truth that everything has someone who disagrees with it?
Here I will agree: the game is very stable, and I actually have remarked on this. It has literally never crashed (though it's gotten stuck a few times when my connection became poor, requiring me to force-close it). This is a major achievement for a new product and you guys deserve a lot of credit for it.
That said, there are numerous bugs with the UI, with gameplay, and most importantly, characters. The character bugs are a big deal because they seriously impact team design and PvP. Some examples:
- Still no answer on why debuff skills like those of Asajj aren't working properly.
- Barriss, whom you nerfed in a major way, has few skills and one of them seems to do nothing.
- Sidious, who was already being used by nearly everyone in PvP, got a logic-defying massive buff that has never been adequately explained. As a result, it is literally a rarity for me to find a team not using him now. Over 90% of teams have him, and that's a clear sign of imbalance.
- And saving the worst for last, Leia, who buffs her entire team 100% of the time when she shouldn't, and seems to attack with a frequency that defies probability. She's being exploited on many of the top teams for this reason. People have been asking for clarification on this for weeks and not a word.
There are many others. I know you guys just launched, and there was a big movie, and it's the holidays. But come January, please focus on the bugs? We'd all be grateful.
This hasn't been done consistently, which is what leads to threads speculating about "stealth changes" to areas such as GW.
Also, people keep wondering about why new players show up at the top of their PvP ladders suddenly. A definitive answer on whether or not you guys are merging servers would be useful.
Not sure what this means. I hope it means that you are working to improve customer service. My few experiences in this area have been poor.
Agreed. But there has been plenty of constructive feedback here as well, and in other threads.
I do appreciate that you post here. There are some games where the devs and producers are never heard from. I thank you for that, despite the above criticisms.
Happy holidays to you and everyone.
Major respect to Qeltar. Totally agree with the character packs vs crystals. Dooku was probably the most generous character pack ever!
Is there a plan to release the pack-only character by non-premium mean at all, is it like pack-only first for a period of time then wider release or pack only forever?
Just so that I wouldn't hold my breath.
P.S. There should be dev QA thread, just saying...
Thanks.
The free bronzium cards every day are similar. They are there solely to give everyone a reason to open the pay store several times a day so they can be tempted to buy other stuff. Sort of like the "loss leader" sales that grocery stores run (selling key items at a loss to get you in the store).
I don't expect to see any more Dooku-like packs. But the current $99 pack goes way too far to the opposite extreme. It's a shame as it is actually costing them as much as us. I will pay for what I feel is a good value, and the "Episode 7 Hype Pack" is not a good value.
Okay I'm going to address as many of these as I can, but I'm not going to quote the entire post because it's really long and it's only a few posts up.
* Crystal packs vs character bundles
Here's the thing. Regardless of what we sell, I think the way you can distinguish that we want the game to be enjoyable for free players or players who might spend twenty bucks a year on the game is that the game is fairly generous with giving out crystals and there are no characters that are only available via direct purchase. And remember, for all the players who will buy the $99.99 pack (or similar), whatever additional content we gain the capacity to create because of the additional revenue will benefit all players. This isn't like the million dollar single-copy Wu Tang Clan album that will only ever be heard by that one guy.
(I guess I could continue with the music analogy, because I think it's amazing that I can listen to most music essentially for free on streaming services, and some people will pay thousands of dollars for limited edition signed vinyl albums and VIP backstage tickets to shows and fifty dollar T-shirts and hundred dollar hoodies... I can still listen to their music for free at the end of the today, and I'm not jealous of the people who spent thousands. I figure, good for them, they're subsidizing the musician to keep creating music that I can enjoy.)
* Subscription pack (7 day vs 21 day)
This is a matter of internal discussion and data. I'm afraid I can't share any more detail than that.
* Unfair economy comment
I admit, I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek when I said that I'm not sure what it means but many would disagree
What I was thinking of though were the mixed messages we get in reviews. Last night I was reading the reviews and I saw, back to back, a review that declared that the game WAS pay to win, followed by a review that said the game WAS NOT pay to win. I'll admit, if you have been playing console games and SWGOH is the first mobile game you ever get into, it might seem "pay to win" at first. But if you've been playing mobile games for years, SWGOH is very, very generous in comparison.
* Various character ability issues
Here's what I'm going to do here. I'm going to ask that, in the new year, Jesse put together a thread JUST for character issues, and I'll lock one of our designers in a room with a laptop and some sandwiches and Diet Pepsi and make them respond to every item with either an explanation or a commitment to fix the bug (if it is a bug) in a future update.
I want to note though, and this isn't an excuse, that for every change we make to a character ability, there's a LOT of testing that needs to happen. So for ongoing issues, what you're seeing most of the time is that something was the lowest priority and was determined too complex to fix and test before the next release.
* Patch notes
We can do better in this area. I'll make sure we have this covered for our next major update.
* Customer service
This is something we've been following up on aggressively since we started receiving complaints. We already had a major logistical bug solved involving ticket priority and the ticket queue for issues submitted through the in-game customer service link. Obviously we need to do more, so we've been following up on the phone support as well.
* Players showing up at the top of PvP ladders
I've never heard a question about merging servers, but I'll answer it here: No.
(Also, you're not really playing on different servers. At least, not in the MMO sense. The PvP leaderboards are separated into smaller groups because it's more fun than competing with millions of people every day. Everybody is playing in the same database though, so for social features you can all see each other.)
If someone jumps to the top of the leaderboard, it's because we use rank-swapping instead of a points system. So someone can jump to the top by some fluke of getting lucky and beating the player at number one. And hey, if they just got lucky, by all means go knock them back down
Hopefully that covers all the important stuff.
-Aaron
We'll do dev QA stuff at some point soon.
Chromium Pack exclusive characters... that's a good question. We may rotate some out of being exclusive.
I'll quote but trim heavily.
I agree that the game is pretty generous with in-game currency, and thank you for that.
All I would ask is that you please understand that there are many of us who really, REALLY hate random packs. I left the last game I was playing because everything was in random packs and I got tired of not being able to advance without the equivalent of buying lottery tickets.
People like me want reasonably-priced, interesting packs of characters that can also be leveled up after purchase. There are a few of these offered as you start playing, but then they dry up. The one pack available now, okay, it was for a hyped-up movie, but please go a bit easier on the pricing afterwards.
I think we all know what this means.
In some ways yes, and in some ways no.
The #1 problem with the game is that because of the escalating energy recharge costs and lack of viable PvP system, there is simply not much to do for most players once they hit cap (which doesn't take long). GW is amazing, fun and I love doing it every day. Beyond that? There's really nothing. I have to use my energy and refills simming for purple pieces and shards, the challenges aren't challenging, and PvP is 30 minutes of sniping at dinnertime.
It's a holiday week, tons of people have a lot of free time, and we're all sitting around watching energy bars recharge. Please, please give us other things to do.
You're awesome. Thanks!
I get it, I work in QA. Communication is key.
Thanks re: patch notes and CS.
Here's an example, see at least one a day: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/2420/over-20-new-players-added-to-server-with-thousands-more-power-am-i-going-crazy
The PvP system needs an overhaul (which I believe you guys are working on).
In the meantime, it would be nice if you couldn't snipe from position 11 to position 2 when you can only go from position 10 to 7.
Thanks for the replies!
ETA one PS: Please get rid of the in-game ads for people who spend $ on the game. They are tacky and we are already supporting this product.