Game Update - 1/28/2016

Replies

  • wickidd wrote: »
    The first couple of rounds that award GW gems, it shows after the battle that I am to earn 200, but once touching continue, I only receive 100
    This is a visual glitch. You received the correct amount of gems (100).
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Anubis wrote: »
    This is a visual glitch.
    ... that they have known about for weeks and weeks, and still haven't fixed. I've gotten weary from answering the threads on it by this point.
    Just one of dozens of bugs that go unfixed while this "bug" got attention because, well, you know.
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • Qeltar wrote: »
    Anubis wrote: »
    This is a visual glitch.
    ... that they have known about for weeks and weeks, and still haven't fixed. I've gotten weary from answering the threads on it by this point.
    Just one of dozens of bugs that go unfixed while this "bug" got attention because, well, you know.
    I used to enjoy reading your posts, but lately you seem to enjoy belaboring the point far past what is necessary. Yes, there are many bugs out there. Yes, we have known about many of them for a long time. A visual glitch is benign and may even be complicated to fix, right now they are probably focusing on fixes that affect gameplay.
  • Anubis wrote: »
    Qeltar wrote: »
    Anubis wrote: »
    This is a visual glitch.
    ... that they have known about for weeks and weeks, and still haven't fixed. I've gotten weary from answering the threads on it by this point.
    Just one of dozens of bugs that go unfixed while this "bug" got attention because, well, you know.
    I used to enjoy reading your posts, but lately you seem to enjoy belaboring the point far past what is necessary. Yes, there are many bugs out there. Yes, we have known about many of them for a long time. A visual glitch is benign and may even be complicated to fix, right now they are probably focusing on fixes that affect gameplay.

    What, pray tell, gameplay bugs have they fixed? They hardly touch gameplay. They are focused on bugs that directly affect their wallet. But they ignore that all bugs affect their wallet.

    The point @Qeltar is making is they ignore bugs all the time until they get around to it, but this was apparently so huge it couldn't wait for the upgrade, it had to be hot fixed.
  • d3gauss wrote: »
    Anubis wrote: »
    Qeltar wrote: »
    Anubis wrote: »
    This is a visual glitch.
    ... that they have known about for weeks and weeks, and still haven't fixed. I've gotten weary from answering the threads on it by this point.
    Just one of dozens of bugs that go unfixed while this "bug" got attention because, well, you know.
    I used to enjoy reading your posts, but lately you seem to enjoy belaboring the point far past what is necessary. Yes, there are many bugs out there. Yes, we have known about many of them for a long time. A visual glitch is benign and may even be complicated to fix, right now they are probably focusing on fixes that affect gameplay.

    What, pray tell, gameplay bugs have they fixed? They hardly touch gameplay. They are focused on bugs that directly affect their wallet. But they ignore that all bugs affect their wallet.

    The point @Qeltar is making is they ignore bugs all the time until they get around to it, but this was apparently so huge it couldn't wait for the upgrade, it had to be hot fixed.

    In the last two patches alone:

    Fixed a bug with Dooku's hindering press not applying stun often enough.

    Units that are defeated and revived will no longer have buffs/debuffs on them.

    Old Daka’s leader ability description has been fixed.

    Luminara Unduli will now trigger her dodge up chance properly after using her Basic Attack.

    Darth Vader’s leader ability will no longer attempt to be applied to enemy units at the start of a battle.

    Leia’s ability (Against All Odds) no longer gives 100% Critical Chance up on buff.

    Fixed a bug where the Jedi Knight Guardian on the Dark Side 1-D battle could apply Ability Block which would persist on characters through encounters.

    Fixed a bug in Cantina Battle 1-A where the Stormtrooper Commander could heal through a Healing Immunity debuff.
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Anubis wrote: »
    Fixed a bug with Dooku's hindering press not applying stun often enough.
    This was a legitimate bug, fixed quickly, and they get full credit for that. Honestly.
    Anubis wrote: »
    Units that are defeated and revived will no longer have buffs/debuffs on them.
    Nice, but minor.
    Anubis wrote: »
    Old Daka’s leader ability description has been fixed.
    Beyond minor. This is literally 30 seconds for an intern. Woot.
    Anubis wrote: »
    Luminara Unduli will now trigger her dodge up chance properly after using her Basic Attack.
    Nice, but minor.
    Anubis wrote: »
    Darth Vader’s leader ability will no longer attempt to be applied to enemy units at the start of a battle.
    Minor.
    Anubis wrote: »
    Leia’s ability (Against All Odds) no longer gives 100% Critical Chance up on buff.
    Important, but took them weeks.
    Anubis wrote: »
    Fixed a bug where the Jedi Knight Guardian on the Dark Side 1-D battle could apply Ability Block which would persist on characters through encounters.
    Nobody cares.
    Anubis wrote: »
    Fixed a bug in Cantina Battle 1-A where the Stormtrooper Commander could heal through a Healing Immunity debuff.
    Nobody cares.

    The company I work for is a fraction the size of CG (much less EA) and we fix more bugs in a product of greater complexity per day than these guys do per week.
    Mind you, we can't afford to lose our customers knowing there will thousands more to take their place. So we have to actually, you know, fix problems.
    And what @d3gauss said -- this is about priorities. Remember, I am not the one who said this change was a bug fix, John Salera did. How can this possibly be more important than removing the extra 3,000 health from FOTP, which is an obvious bug with a simple fix? Simple: getting more crystals is important to them, and fixing gameplay is.. less important.
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • Qeltar wrote: »
    Anubis wrote: »
    In the last two patches alone:

    Fixed a bug with Dooku's hindering press not applying stun often enough.

    Units that are defeated and revived will no longer have buffs/debuffs on them.

    Old Daka’s leader ability description has been fixed.

    Luminara Unduli will now trigger her dodge up chance properly after using her Basic Attack.

    Darth Vader’s leader ability will no longer attempt to be applied to enemy units at the start of a battle.

    Leia’s ability (Against All Odds) no longer gives 100% Critical Chance up on buff.

    Fixed a bug where the Jedi Knight Guardian on the Dark Side 1-D battle could apply Ability Block which would persist on characters through encounters.

    Fixed a bug in Cantina Battle 1-A where the Stormtrooper Commander could heal through a Healing Immunity debuff.

    The company I work for is a fraction the size of CG (much less EA) and we fix more bugs in a product of greater complexity per day than these guys do per week.
    And what @d3gauss said -- this is about priorities. Remember, I am not the one who said this change was a bug fix, John Salera did. How can this possibly be more important than removing the extra 3,000 health from FOTP, which is an obvious bug with a simple fix? Simple: getting more crystals is important to them, and fixing gameplay is.. less important.

    Oh, I agree wholeheartedly that they should step up their game with bug fixes. What I am pushing back against is the idea that the GW shipments were fixed in order to help their bottom line.

    (Although, with regards to FOTP, if I was CG I would hold off on fixing him until the big update when they rebalance all of the characters. There's more broken about him then just the reversal of stats, his main attack is more deadly then his special. Perhaps he gets to keep some of the health in exchange for some other change.)
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Anubis wrote: »
    Oh, I agree wholeheartedly that they should step up their game with bug fixes. What I am pushing back against is the idea that the GW shipments were fixed in order to help their bottom line.
    They very clearly intended this to not require crystals when it was originally designed. Think about the Dooku bug -- it was supposed to be 50% and was 5%... clearly an obvious bug. Here, what are we supposed to believe: that they "accidentally" used the wrong currency and the wrong amount, and that they didn't notice this for 3+ months and just-so-happened to notice and fix it right before a big update? Come on.
    How can this not be about the bottom line? If they only wanted to slow down trade-ins that could have been done by changing the 10 to a larger number, like 200. They changed it to crystals.
    It's just like the GW thing. "Oh, well, we put in functionality A when you hit retreat, but what we really meant was for it to behave like functionality B, which by pure coincidence is exactly the same as what happens when you force-close (which one of our guys lamented would be hard to prevent)". Someone mentioned the other day: if they always intended retreat to reset the match, why bother having it require at least one enemy attack? That makes sense for the original retreat, not this one, the fight is reset, so who cares? But it's still in there.
    I don't care what they do, it's their game, just be straight with us.
    Anubis wrote: »
    (Although, with regards to FOTP, if I was CG I would hold off on fixing him until the big update when they rebalance all of the characters. There's more broken about him then just the reversal of stats, his main attack is more deadly then his special. Perhaps he gets to keep some of the health in exchange for some other change.)

    I agree with you, I was only picking on that because it's such an obvious and glaring error, it is a major detriment to game balance, and they have let it sit there week after week after week. If they want to claim that this GW thing was a bug fix, then they open themselves to criticism about their priorities.
    That said, yes, I talk too much, so I'll shut up about it now. :)
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • Not cool guys.. i think changing the galactic war refresh to crystals isnt right.. its hard enough already..
  • It's actually not that simple, Qeltar. They clearly messed up part of the code since it wouldn't let you refresh GW if you had no crystals. It's not unthinkable that someone messed up and they decided to not bother fixing it (since you can only get 3 shipments per day anyway). Now, with people hoarding tokens, they may have realized that this previously innocuous bug will now have an impact on gameplay, and so they patched it.

    That's how the scenario plays out in my head, in any case.
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    They could have patched it to still allow refreshes with tokens. That was part of what made GW unique, and it made sense because you can get so many tokens per day if you grind through GW.
    They didn't.
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • Qeltar wrote: »
    They could have patched it to still allow refreshes with tokens. That was part of what made GW unique, and it made sense because you can get so many tokens per day if you grind through GW.
    They didn't.

    It isn't part of what makes GW "unique," and the whole point is that they patched being able to refresh with tokens. They were not being malicious, they were bringing the shipment in line with all of the other ones before they change the economy with the addition of new characters.
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    We're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one, my friend.
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • Anubis wrote: »
    It's actually not that simple, Qeltar. They clearly messed up part of the code since it wouldn't let you refresh GW if you had no crystals. It's not unthinkable that someone messed up and they decided to not bother fixing it (since you can only get 3 shipments per day anyway). Now, with people hoarding tokens, they may have realized that this previously innocuous bug will now have an impact on gameplay, and so they patched it.

    That's how the scenario plays out in my head, in any case.

    The more likely scenario is that they noticed everyone was hoarding tokens and said, "hey, we can make a buck off that".

    This would have been an incredibly simple code fix, it is actually probably a database fix at oppose to fixing lines of code. There is no reason if they intended it to be crystals the whole time they could not have quickly changed that a million times before the game went live.

    They have done some minor gameplay bug fixes, I was being facetious when I said they have done nothing. But the reasoning is they have ignored tons of glaring bugs that make characters completely useless, tons of bugs that make characters way more powerful than they should be, and at least one character that is ridiculous in comparison to every other character. You also have a number of bugs that they say they fix when in fact they never do (see:barris attack healing when enemy dodges).

    In the mean time they have put out a number of controversial updates that can only be seen as money grabs. GW Crystals, QGJ, Level Increase, New characters for force awakens. QGJ may look like it was aimed toward the F2P crowd, but really it is toward the minor spenders, who would never buy packs but would have no issue buying extra energy so they can get a QGJ on their team faster.

    I defended CG on a number of occasions, saying they weren't all about the money, that they were trying to give us something good. I implore you to go do some research on the company and specifically who is in that company and tell me, after you read what you find, does it sound out of character for them to be more concerned with their money grab?
  • Anubis
    200 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Fair enough. G'night and may your light sabers stay sharp.

    Edit: I guess I also could have said "may the force be with you," but that sounds so cheesy...
  • Hey guys -

    We're way losing focus here. Let's not try to turn this thread into a clearing house of all bugs in the game.

    We are in the final stages of testing for the February update. Much work has gone into that update, and I hope you guys will be pleased with what's coming.

    We are working on detailed Release Notes and hope to be able to post those early next week (in advance of the release of the update). Last time I saw the draft of the fixed bug portion of the list, it had over 70 fixes. I expect the final version to list more.

    Anyway, to those who are saying my post doesn't pass the smell test... there's really not much I can do for you. People cry out for more developer interaction, we provide it, and get called liars. That's honestly pretty boring. We'll just keep telling you the truth and you can choose to believe us or not.

    To those who are asking how on earth we just noticed this bug now... we didn't. We saw it earlier and simply prioritized fixing it below other things we've addressed.

    A side note on why some bugs get fixed faster than others. The game is made up of several parts. One of those parts is the "client" that runs on your devices. Fixing bugs that are resident in the client takes longer because we have to go through a more complicated and time-consuming testing and release process. This February update is our first client update since a small hotfix build we put out in December. The client before that was the world wide release (which launched in the soft launch countries about a week before that build went world wide).

    So, please realize that some bugs which are truly more important can't get fixed as fast as bugs which reside in the server, data, or assets even though those ones are potentially less important. Those elements of the game we can release much faster. That is why things sometimes seem out of order or seem to be taking longer than they should. (And not because we're evil / greedy / incompetent / money hungry trolls / etc. or any of the other fairly insulting reasons people imagine.)

    And now, on to what happened here:
    1. People who didn't want to Activate or Promote any of the characters currently available in the GW Shipments didn't spend their GW Tokens. Cool.
    2. They amassed some number of these Tokens. Cool. (BTW - I have no idea how many people had more or fewer of these tokens. It's not relevant. Perhaps someone on the team knows this, or knew it at one time, but it's really not something we talk or think about a lot. Just wanted to clarify that because some of the conspiracy theorists have asserted that their high balances had something to do with this. "You knew I was stockpiling and wanted to punish me!" or somesuch variant. That's frankly story they made up in their heads and has no bearing on reality.)
    3. We fixed this bug and brought this Refresh in alignment with every other Refresh in the game. We didn't message or "warn" anyone about this because we honestly figured it was obviously a bug. Apparently, not cool.
    4. We saw the forums heat up and the toxicity flow. (And seriously folks, these forums are way too toxic, filled with conspiracy theories, and misinformation. I'm hoping we can work together to bring the tenor of the conversation to a healthier, more productive and positive posture.)
    5. We decided to enact this one week hiatus so people who were upset and frankly calling us all forms of insulting things could spend away as they see fit.
    6. Some people rejoiced, some said it was a good move, some still found a way to be upset. I know it's a fools errand to try to make everyone happy, but it is starting to feel like some number of people are going to rise up in fury regardless what we do, change, or add. But that's a longer-term problem related to the toxicity levels.

    Almost lastly, the timing of this was not due to any pending update, or additional characters, or anything else. It was a bug, it came up in the queue to be fixed, and was.

    Really lastly, I don't currently know when the next character is supposed to be added to GW Shipments (nor which one). Given the tension around this latest fix, I'm not sure whether it would be a good thing or bad thing to add a character.

    If we add one, people will claim we did this fix the ensure they couldn't get one quickly. If we don't add one, people will say their being punished (somehow, though I can't figure out what theory would emerge to have that make sense). I need to talk to the team about how we should proceed here. I'm open to (constructive) suggestions.

    Long post. Lots of words. Hope it makes sense and clarifies things.

    Thanks for reading.
  • Hey guys -

    We're way losing focus here. Let's not try to turn this thread into a clearing house of all bugs in the game.

    We are in the final stages of testing for the February update. Much work has gone into that update, and I hope you guys will be pleased with what's coming.

    We are working on detailed Release Notes and hope to be able to post those early next week (in advance of the release of the update). Last time I saw the draft of the fixed bug portion of the list, it had over 70 fixes. I expect the final version to list more.

    Anyway, to those who are saying my post doesn't pass the smell test... there's really not much I can do for you. People cry out for more developer interaction, we provide it, and get called liars. That's honestly pretty boring. We'll just keep telling you the truth and you can choose to believe us or not.

    To those who are asking how on earth we just noticed this bug now... we didn't. We saw it earlier and simply prioritized fixing it below other things we've addressed.

    A side note on why some bugs get fixed faster than others. The game is made up of several parts. One of those parts is the "client" that runs on your devices. Fixing bugs that are resident in the client takes longer because we have to go through a more complicated and time-consuming testing and release process. This February update is our first client update since a small hotfix build we put out in December. The client before that was the world wide release (which launched in the soft launch countries about a week before that build went world wide).

    So, please realize that some bugs which are truly more important can't get fixed as fast as bugs which reside in the server, data, or assets even though those ones are potentially less important. Those elements of the game we can release much faster. That is why things sometimes seem out of order or seem to be taking longer than they should. (And not because we're evil / greedy / incompetent / money hungry trolls / etc. or any of the other fairly insulting reasons people imagine.)

    And now, on to what happened here:
    1. People who didn't want to Activate or Promote any of the characters currently available in the GW Shipments didn't spend their GW Tokens. Cool.
    2. They amassed some number of these Tokens. Cool. (BTW - I have no idea how many people had more or fewer of these tokens. It's not relevant. Perhaps someone on the team knows this, or knew it at one time, but it's really not something we talk or think about a lot. Just wanted to clarify that because some of the conspiracy theorists have asserted that their high balances had something to do with this. "You knew I was stockpiling and wanted to punish me!" or somesuch variant. That's frankly story they made up in their heads and has no bearing on reality.)
    3. We fixed this bug and brought this Refresh in alignment with every other Refresh in the game. We didn't message or "warn" anyone about this because we honestly figured it was obviously a bug. Apparently, not cool.
    4. We saw the forums heat up and the toxicity flow. (And seriously folks, these forums are way too toxic, filled with conspiracy theories, and misinformation. I'm hoping we can work together to bring the tenor of the conversation to a healthier, more productive and positive posture.)
    5. We decided to enact this one week hiatus so people who were upset and frankly calling us all forms of insulting things could spend away as they see fit.
    6. Some people rejoiced, some said it was a good move, some still found a way to be upset. I know it's a fools errand to try to make everyone happy, but it is starting to feel like some number of people are going to rise up in fury regardless what we do, change, or add. But that's a longer-term problem related to the toxicity levels.

    Almost lastly, the timing of this was not due to any pending update, or additional characters, or anything else. It was a bug, it came up in the queue to be fixed, and was.

    Really lastly, I don't currently know when the next character is supposed to be added to GW Shipments (nor which one). Given the tension around this latest fix, I'm not sure whether it would be a good thing or bad thing to add a character.

    If we add one, people will claim we did this fix the ensure they couldn't get one quickly. If we don't add one, people will say their being punished (somehow, though I can't figure out what theory would emerge to have that make sense). I need to talk to the team about how we should proceed here. I'm open to (constructive) suggestions.

    Long post. Lots of words. Hope it makes sense and clarifies things.

    Thanks for reading.

    Ty for the update, especially on the weekend. There are still many that are happy with the game, myself being one. Perhaps this group is not as vocal as the group that always wants to find a complaint.

    Anyways, really looking forward to the big update and keep up there good work.
  • Embo
    39 posts Member
    Thank you for giving us the chance to burn off our odd GW tokens. It's very much appreciated :smiley:
  • Al_Tiz
    58 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    You should add a character to GW in order to make up for changing the currency for refreshes in shipments.

    It may not have been intended to be anything other than a bug fix but as a company CG should understand that any change in game content that negatively affects players will result in community backlash, having announced the change in advance would have been the right thing to do in retrospect. In order to diminish so called toxicity, you have to be willing to give devoted players what they ask especially if you are asking us for guidance to begin with.

    Be certain that you take into account legitimate grievances and don't discount them as toxicity, otherwise things will deteriorate.

    Announcing possibly impactful updates or fixes in advance would be a great place to start if the goal is lowering toxicity.
  • Hey guys -

    We're way losing focus here. Let's not try to turn this thread into a clearing house of all bugs in the game.

    We are in the final stages of testing for the February update. Much work has gone into that update, and I hope you guys will be pleased with what's coming.

    We are working on detailed Release Notes and hope to be able to post those early next week (in advance of the release of the update). Last time I saw the draft of the fixed bug portion of the list, it had over 70 fixes. I expect the final version to list more.

    Anyway, to those who are saying my post doesn't pass the smell test... there's really not much I can do for you. People cry out for more developer interaction, we provide it, and get called liars. That's honestly pretty boring. We'll just keep telling you the truth and you can choose to believe us or not.

    To those who are asking how on earth we just noticed this bug now... we didn't. We saw it earlier and simply prioritized fixing it below other things we've addressed.

    A side note on why some bugs get fixed faster than others. The game is made up of several parts. One of those parts is the "client" that runs on your devices. Fixing bugs that are resident in the client takes longer because we have to go through a more complicated and time-consuming testing and release process. This February update is our first client update since a small hotfix build we put out in December. The client before that was the world wide release (which launched in the soft launch countries about a week before that build went world wide).

    So, please realize that some bugs which are truly more important can't get fixed as fast as bugs which reside in the server, data, or assets even though those ones are potentially less important. Those elements of the game we can release much faster. That is why things sometimes seem out of order or seem to be taking longer than they should. (And not because we're evil / greedy / incompetent / money hungry trolls / etc. or any of the other fairly insulting reasons people imagine.)

    And now, on to what happened here:
    1. People who didn't want to Activate or Promote any of the characters currently available in the GW Shipments didn't spend their GW Tokens. Cool.
    2. They amassed some number of these Tokens. Cool. (BTW - I have no idea how many people had more or fewer of these tokens. It's not relevant. Perhaps someone on the team knows this, or knew it at one time, but it's really not something we talk or think about a lot. Just wanted to clarify that because some of the conspiracy theorists have asserted that their high balances had something to do with this. "You knew I was stockpiling and wanted to punish me!" or somesuch variant. That's frankly story they made up in their heads and has no bearing on reality.)
    3. We fixed this bug and brought this Refresh in alignment with every other Refresh in the game. We didn't message or "warn" anyone about this because we honestly figured it was obviously a bug. Apparently, not cool.
    4. We saw the forums heat up and the toxicity flow. (And seriously folks, these forums are way too toxic, filled with conspiracy theories, and misinformation. I'm hoping we can work together to bring the tenor of the conversation to a healthier, more productive and positive posture.)
    5. We decided to enact this one week hiatus so people who were upset and frankly calling us all forms of insulting things could spend away as they see fit.
    6. Some people rejoiced, some said it was a good move, some still found a way to be upset. I know it's a fools errand to try to make everyone happy, but it is starting to feel like some number of people are going to rise up in fury regardless what we do, change, or add. But that's a longer-term problem related to the toxicity levels.

    Almost lastly, the timing of this was not due to any pending update, or additional characters, or anything else. It was a bug, it came up in the queue to be fixed, and was.

    Really lastly, I don't currently know when the next character is supposed to be added to GW Shipments (nor which one). Given the tension around this latest fix, I'm not sure whether it would be a good thing or bad thing to add a character.

    If we add one, people will claim we did this fix the ensure they couldn't get one quickly. If we don't add one, people will say their being punished (somehow, though I can't figure out what theory would emerge to have that make sense). I need to talk to the team about how we should proceed here. I'm open to (constructive) suggestions.

    Long post. Lots of words. Hope it makes sense and clarifies things.

    Thanks for reading.

    @CG_JohnSalera
    Thanks again for letting people spend theirs. I'll use it to get to the even 100. I spend them fast,lol.

    I call everything as I see it and I'll say again this was an awesome gesture by you guys to help alleviate some frustration people felt. I applaud you all reading, listening, and responding positively to this. I spend much of my business life working with restaurants, same thing, none can ever all be happy, yet you try and try. Much props and respect for taking the time to, in such detail, explain all this and the reasoning and educate us on the differences in update types. I for one learned something. I had no clue you had separate client update. I assumed all were done on the client. I'll keep it in mind going forward. Shows where your head and heart are though in taking the time and effort. Thanks John. Looking very much forward to the update. Keep up the good work.
  • Phipps
    1107 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    @CG_JohnSalera

    Much thanks for the detailed post. I know we all appreciate the transparency as to why decisions and changes are made and that's why the forum can get very toxic/conspiracy theory like. I believe the more posts like that by you or other Devs will help to mitigate this in the future. I look forward to the Feb update and what your team has came up with to improve gameplay.
  • Hey guys -

    We're way losing focus here. Let's not try to turn this thread into a clearing house of all bugs in the game.

    We are in the final stages of testing for the February update. Much work has gone into that update, and I hope you guys will be pleased with what's coming.

    We are working on detailed Release Notes and hope to be able to post those early next week (in advance of the release of the update). Last time I saw the draft of the fixed bug portion of the list, it had over 70 fixes. I expect the final version to list more.

    Anyway, to those who are saying my post doesn't pass the smell test... there's really not much I can do for you. People cry out for more developer interaction, we provide it, and get called liars. That's honestly pretty boring. We'll just keep telling you the truth and you can choose to believe us or not.

    To those who are asking how on earth we just noticed this bug now... we didn't. We saw it earlier and simply prioritized fixing it below other things we've addressed.

    A side note on why some bugs get fixed faster than others. The game is made up of several parts. One of those parts is the "client" that runs on your devices. Fixing bugs that are resident in the client takes longer because we have to go through a more complicated and time-consuming testing and release process. This February update is our first client update since a small hotfix build we put out in December. The client before that was the world wide release (which launched in the soft launch countries about a week before that build went world wide).

    So, please realize that some bugs which are truly more important can't get fixed as fast as bugs which reside in the server, data, or assets even though those ones are potentially less important. Those elements of the game we can release much faster. That is why things sometimes seem out of order or seem to be taking longer than they should. (And not because we're evil / greedy / incompetent / money hungry trolls / etc. or any of the other fairly insulting reasons people imagine.)

    And now, on to what happened here:
    1. People who didn't want to Activate or Promote any of the characters currently available in the GW Shipments didn't spend their GW Tokens. Cool.
    2. They amassed some number of these Tokens. Cool. (BTW - I have no idea how many people had more or fewer of these tokens. It's not relevant. Perhaps someone on the team knows this, or knew it at one time, but it's really not something we talk or think about a lot. Just wanted to clarify that because some of the conspiracy theorists have asserted that their high balances had something to do with this. "You knew I was stockpiling and wanted to punish me!" or somesuch variant. That's frankly story they made up in their heads and has no bearing on reality.)
    3. We fixed this bug and brought this Refresh in alignment with every other Refresh in the game. We didn't message or "warn" anyone about this because we honestly figured it was obviously a bug. Apparently, not cool.
    4. We saw the forums heat up and the toxicity flow. (And seriously folks, these forums are way too toxic, filled with conspiracy theories, and misinformation. I'm hoping we can work together to bring the tenor of the conversation to a healthier, more productive and positive posture.)
    5. We decided to enact this one week hiatus so people who were upset and frankly calling us all forms of insulting things could spend away as they see fit.
    6. Some people rejoiced, some said it was a good move, some still found a way to be upset. I know it's a fools errand to try to make everyone happy, but it is starting to feel like some number of people are going to rise up in fury regardless what we do, change, or add. But that's a longer-term problem related to the toxicity levels.

    Almost lastly, the timing of this was not due to any pending update, or additional characters, or anything else. It was a bug, it came up in the queue to be fixed, and was.

    Really lastly, I don't currently know when the next character is supposed to be added to GW Shipments (nor which one). Given the tension around this latest fix, I'm not sure whether it would be a good thing or bad thing to add a character.

    If we add one, people will claim we did this fix the ensure they couldn't get one quickly. If we don't add one, people will say their being punished (somehow, though I can't figure out what theory would emerge to have that make sense). I need to talk to the team about how we should proceed here. I'm open to (constructive) suggestions.

    Long post. Lots of words. Hope it makes sense and clarifies things.

    Thanks for reading.

    Thank you for the information. Like others I was upset...I figured it was a cool part of the game that was abruptly changed and I became angry. Not necessarily at the change itself, but the timing. Thank you for the extra week to use the old refresh(even if I don't use it myself), I cannot speak for others but I do appreciate it.

    As for toxicity...every game forum I have ever read has had a certain level of toxicity. Judging this one(and admittedly my own comments as points), I think this stems from the GW change, and lack of communication regarding said update. Things kind of went downhill from there. I'm sure as things progress, the forums will calm down as well. I do hope the preview on the Feb update has a decent level of information.... It will reduce speculation, and especially negative speculation.
  • @CG_JohnSalera

    More open communication would go a long way to calming all of us down. We aren't asking for you to ask our permission to do anything, that would be ridiculous. But something as simple as a known bugs sticky and issues which gets updated daily, bi weekly, or weekly would stop almost all of the conspiracy theories.

    It should include everything that you guys know is a bug and are planning on fixing at some point. Of course nobody is going to fault you on not listing things that can be exploited for obvious reasons. It should not include things that are not necessarily bugs that have been brought to your attention on the forums, that should be a different post entirely (and already exsists).

    When you are completely silent until we throw fits it makes it look like you are attempting to pull the wool over our eyes as well as having the misfortune effect of encouraging us to act up to get answers.

    Anyways, sorry for my part in being toxic, I can get passionate.
  • My first post about this.

    First of all, thanks @CG_JohnSalera, keep on interacting as much as you can ! :smiley:

    Since you ask for constructive suggestions I will try even if I am not saving any GW token and have no intention to use any currency to refresh the GW shipments.

    Even if my greatest hope is new good characters in arena shipments, I think it would be cool to ad some new character(s) in the GW shipments too and (this is my suggestions):
    1- annonce Monday (or asap, but during the old fashion refresh system week) if you will or won't
    2- if you will, tell the community the characters who will be avalaible in GW shipments.
    3- give the opportunity to use the old fashion refresh system during one day or two after the new character(s) are avalaible in GW shipments

    Players who saved tokens will then have all the informations to decide what to do with their tokens.

    And I do support the idea of a public known bugs and issues, that would be great for us, for this forums and for you here.

    Thanks for reading !
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    We're way losing focus here. Let's not try to turn this thread into a clearing house of all bugs in the game.
    You've "converted" this currency change from what it was originally claimed to be -- an update -- into a "bug fix". People are therefore rightly contrasting this "bug fix" to the many other bugs that have gone unfixed. It's entirely legitimate. @d3gauss said it well: there are numerous major bugs, many of which should have been fixed by now. They sit unfixed while you tinker with refresh currencies. And make fixes nobody cares about (like minor PvE issues).
    The community is telling you that it is dissatisfied with your bug fix priorities. You can take that feedback to heart, or ignore it. As always, you have all the power.
    We are working on detailed Release Notes and hope to be able to post those early next week (in advance of the release of the update).
    This would be welcomed, thank you.
    Anyway, to those who are saying my post doesn't pass the smell test... there's really not much I can do for you. People cry out for more developer interaction, we provide it, and get called liars. That's honestly pretty boring. We'll just keep telling you the truth and you can choose to believe us or not.
    This is a bit facile. Belief is based on the reasonableness of what is posted, and the amount of goodwill and trust built up between two parties. When you go for a week and a half without posting and then spring a change you know people aren't going to like, and then claim it was a bug fix when nearly everything points against it, well, that's when you get people saying things don't pass the smell test.
    John, you know that I have defended CG repeatedly, including against claims that you were lying about things. I've responded to claims about broken or fudged probabilities / amped AI abilities / manipulated drop rates.. countless times. You also may remember that long post I made trying to debunk some of the drop rate and proc hysteria. I have not made a habit of calling you out -- just the opposite.
    And I'm not calling you a "liar" here either, I am simply pointing out the facts:
    - Everyone knew that GW refreshes required GW tokens as currency for the entire life of the game.
    - There was every reason to believe this recharge cost was deliberate: the currency and amount are both different, and since GW tokens can be earned more quickly than others, people (like me) assumed it was different here so people could spend them more quickly when changes were made.
    - The change was made suddenly and without warning, causing great annoyance to people who stockpiled based on the old recharge cost.
    - Other bugs that have cost CG crystals have been fixed very promptly.
    - It was listed as an “update” and not a “bug fix” in the release notes.
    - The change was made right before a big update where new characters would likely be coming.
    - The change was made right before introduction of a shard shop, when the old mechanism would have allowed people to quickly get lots of shards on 7* characters.
    You’re a veteran of this industry. You know that optics matter. People are calling foul on this as a “bug fix” because it simply doesn’t look like one. And you and I also both know that if this waited this long, it could have waited until after the big update too.
    It is unreasonable to hand-wave away all valid criticism of claims that appear odd as simply “boring” cranks who are unappreciative of your interaction.
    A side note on why some bugs get fixed faster than others. The game is made up of several parts. One of those parts is the "client" that runs on your devices. Fixing bugs that are resident in the client takes longer because we have to go through a more complicated and time-consuming testing and release process. This February update is our first client update since a small hotfix build we put out in December. The client before that was the world wide release (which launched in the soft launch countries about a week before that build went world wide).
    I’ve been programming since before Return of the Jedi came out. I have an advanced degree in computer science and work professionally in software quality assurance. There are many serious bugs in this game that should have been fixed weeks ago.
    If you like, go to this page: https://swgohdb.com/heroes/firstordertiepilot
    Click on the “Levels” bar above the word “Primary”. Now change the “Stars” slider from 7 to 6 to 7 back and forth and look at the number next to “Health”. This one bug – which I’m sorry, is not something difficult to fix – has been wreaking havoc in PvP and GW for weeks. Hundreds of people have begged you guys to fix it. And still it sits there.
    I and others have spent resources building up other characters with more minor flaws. Week after week they sit there, not being fixed. Some claimed fixes don’t even work.
    Last week an issue came up with Dooku. It was acknowledged and responded to promptly. That was excellent, and you got positive feedback on it. This isn’t difficult: do what your customers like, and they will be happy with you.
    (And not because we're evil / greedy / incompetent / money hungry trolls / etc. or any of the other fairly insulting reasons people imagine.)
    For better or worse, your company has a reputation of putting money above all else. And many actions you’ve taken have reinforced this impression.
    Changing the cost of GW refreshes from free and ample currency to premium currency that costs money is called “greedy” for fairly obvious reasons. You can rationalize this as a “bug fix” all you like, but the bottom line is the same: it used to be free, and now it costs money.
    There are other examples too. Price increases on crystal subs after they disappeared for a month, overpriced bundles with bogus “discount” claims on them, etc. etc.
    People who didn't want to Activate or Promote any of the characters currently available in the GW Shipments didn't spend their GW Tokens. Cool.
    They amassed some number of these Tokens. Cool.
    You say “cool” but the action taken here basically was read by everyone as you guys thinking it was “uncool”. Of the people who didn’t think this change was a cash grab, nearly everyone thought you did it now because you didn’t want people stockpiling these tokens.
    Let’s be real here. What is the reason for recharge costs on shipments anyway? It’s to slow people down who stockpile and/or get $ from people who want to go faster. Otherwise why have it? Come on, we all know what the deal is.
    We saw the forums heat up and the toxicity flow. (And seriously folks, these forums are way too toxic, filled with conspiracy theories, and misinformation. I'm hoping we can work together to bring the tenor of the conversation to a healthier, more productive and positive posture.)
    I don’t think expressing displeasure at a change that negatively impacts many people and positively impacts almost none, sprung on us without warning right before a big update, qualifies as “toxic”. I’m sorry you are offended that people don’t buy that this was an innocent bug fix, but as I said, it doesn’t look like one.
    Also, before yesterday, no developers or managers from CG had posted here in over a week. Aaron has disappeared entirely. Communication is important. When you guys go “radio silent” you encourage speculation.
    Some people rejoiced, some said it was a good move, some still found a way to be upset. I know it's a fools errand to try to make everyone happy, but it is starting to feel like some number of people are going to rise up in fury regardless what we do, change, or add.
    The response to this reprieve was entirely positive from what I can see. The truth is that you guys have it easy and you know it. Gamers are lemmings for customers. You guys never should have sprung this on us without notice in the first place. You backtrack slightly on it and everyone showers you with praise.
    If my company ever did this sort of thing I’d be on the unemployment line within a month. You guys are raking in the dough and do whatever you want.
    Almost lastly, the timing of this was not due to any pending update, or additional characters, or anything else. It was a bug, it came up in the queue to be fixed, and was.
    Then your queue is seriously suspect from a player’s point of view. That’s why people were talking about bug fixes in general.
    Really lastly, I don't currently know when the next character is supposed to be added to GW Shipments (nor which one). Given the tension around this latest fix, I'm not sure whether it would be a good thing or bad thing to add a character.
    What? How could adding more to GW shipments be a bad thing? Frankly, this comes across to me as vindictive: “we’ll show you guys for complaining, we won’t put anything new in there”.
    Surely you must realize that the lack of good options for characters is one of the primary reasons people were stockpiling in the first place? There are only 10 characters in there now, several of which are widely regarded as too underpowered to be worth using, and several of which are considered worthy of niche builds. You guys have added only 1 character in there in the 2 months since launch! What is it you expect people to use their tokens on? Tusken raider? Really?
    I have 20,000 tokens not because I “nefariously” want to get the jump on everyone else with respect to new characters. I have them because I’ve maxed out the only characters in GW shipments that have any relevance to my team. It costs thousands of droids and millions of credits to level up a new character. What is the point in unlocking ones I am not going to use?
    Amazing.
    P.S. If I ever used phrases like "toxic" or "conspiracy theory" in my job to refer to a customer's complaints, under any circumstances, I'd likely be fired on the spot. As I said, you guys have it easy, and don't think it doesn't show.
    Post edited by Qeltar on
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • DarkHelmetOP
    194 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Hey guys -

    We're way losing focus here. Let's not try to turn this thread into a clearing house of all bugs in the game.

    We are in the final stages of testing for the February update. Much work has gone into that update, and I hope you guys will be pleased with what's coming.

    We are working on detailed Release Notes and hope to be able to post those early next week (in advance of the release of the update). Last time I saw the draft of the fixed bug portion of the list, it had over 70 fixes. I expect the final version to list more.

    Anyway, to those who are saying my post doesn't pass the smell test... there's really not much I can do for you. People cry out for more developer interaction, we provide it, and get called liars. That's honestly pretty boring. We'll just keep telling you the truth and you can choose to believe us or not.

    To those who are asking how on earth we just noticed this bug now... we didn't. We saw it earlier and simply prioritized fixing it below other things we've addressed.

    A side note on why some bugs get fixed faster than others. The game is made up of several parts. One of those parts is the "client" that runs on your devices. Fixing bugs that are resident in the client takes longer because we have to go through a more complicated and time-consuming testing and release process. This February update is our first client update since a small hotfix build we put out in December. The client before that was the world wide release (which launched in the soft launch countries about a week before that build went world wide).

    So, please realize that some bugs which are truly more important can't get fixed as fast as bugs which reside in the server, data, or assets even though those ones are potentially less important. Those elements of the game we can release much faster. That is why things sometimes seem out of order or seem to be taking longer than they should. (And not because we're evil / greedy / incompetent / money hungry trolls / etc. or any of the other fairly insulting reasons people imagine.)

    And now, on to what happened here:
    1. People who didn't want to Activate or Promote any of the characters currently available in the GW Shipments didn't spend their GW Tokens. Cool.
    2. They amassed some number of these Tokens. Cool. (BTW - I have no idea how many people had more or fewer of these tokens. It's not relevant. Perhaps someone on the team knows this, or knew it at one time, but it's really not something we talk or think about a lot. Just wanted to clarify that because some of the conspiracy theorists have asserted that their high balances had something to do with this. "You knew I was stockpiling and wanted to punish me!" or somesuch variant. That's frankly story they made up in their heads and has no bearing on reality.)
    3. We fixed this bug and brought this Refresh in alignment with every other Refresh in the game. We didn't message or "warn" anyone about this because we honestly figured it was obviously a bug. Apparently, not cool.
    4. We saw the forums heat up and the toxicity flow. (And seriously folks, these forums are way too toxic, filled with conspiracy theories, and misinformation. I'm hoping we can work together to bring the tenor of the conversation to a healthier, more productive and positive posture.)
    5. We decided to enact this one week hiatus so people who were upset and frankly calling us all forms of insulting things could spend away as they see fit.
    6. Some people rejoiced, some said it was a good move, some still found a way to be upset. I know it's a fools errand to try to make everyone happy, but it is starting to feel like some number of people are going to rise up in fury regardless what we do, change, or add. But that's a longer-term problem related to the toxicity levels.

    Almost lastly, the timing of this was not due to any pending update, or additional characters, or anything else. It was a bug, it came up in the queue to be fixed, and was.

    Really lastly, I don't currently know when the next character is supposed to be added to GW Shipments (nor which one). Given the tension around this latest fix, I'm not sure whether it would be a good thing or bad thing to add a character.

    If we add one, people will claim we did this fix the ensure they couldn't get one quickly. If we don't add one, people will say their being punished (somehow, though I can't figure out what theory would emerge to have that make sense). I need to talk to the team about how we should proceed here. I'm open to (constructive) suggestions.

    Long post. Lots of words. Hope it makes sense and clarifies things.

    Thanks for reading.

    I think the blow back you are getting is from making major changes almost no one likes or putting out a product many of us paid for that apparently did not work as you "intended". We get complete silence from you in the GW thread YOU started. Calling us toxic when we are rightfully angry will not help the situation you created.

    I feel defrauded by you. I'd spent about 400 bucks either you sold me a faulty game or it was a bait and switch.

    Then you add insult to injury by calling us toxic conspiracy theorists?! Wow. You are grossly unprofessional. EA needs some customer service and public relations training ASAP.

    I will by the way be getting my money back. If Apple doesn't directly by credit card will.

    Listen to your PAYING customers and create a fully functional product and get some PR training and your forums might just have a little less heat.

    What a waste of time and money this game turned out to be.

  • Triqui
    2790 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    My constructive criticism is that you should hire someone for the PR aspect. Not everybody is able to do everything, and the skills needed to program software are different than the skills needed to connunicate things. I don't think this post will reduce "toxicity".

    Here goes a free advice: first step is to set your goals. If your goals are " to teach them a lesson", or "to expose their sillyness", or simply "vent off the Dev's frustration with the forum", then calling critics "Bunch of Conspiracy Theorist and Toxicity Makers', will help your goals. On the other hand, if your goal is to placate them and reduce hostility, it's not helpful. So if your goal is the later, you need someone able to suck it up, smile, and restrain to cheap shot in the answer to the critics even if they are (or you feel they are) wrong.

    Feel free to listen the advice, to ignore it, or to reply to it with a stealthy chespshot included. Perdonally I didn't care about the GW change, I don't have Points stockpiled. I think CG could improve the communication, tho, and I disagree with the idea that "blackbox design" (ie: ehat sre the drop rste, how foes tenacity works, etc) is good for the game. Those 2 are the points CG should improve in my opinion
  • HavokTrigger
    897 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Hey guys -

    We're way losing focus here. Let's not try to turn this thread into a clearing house of all bugs in the game.

    We are in the final stages of testing for the February update. Much work has gone into that update, and I hope you guys will be pleased with what's coming.

    We are working on detailed Release Notes and hope to be able to post those early next week (in advance of the release of the update). Last time I saw the draft of the fixed bug portion of the list, it had over 70 fixes. I expect the final version to list more.

    Thanks for reading.

    Thanks =) 70 bug fixes is amazing. I wasn't even aware there were half that many. I appreciate your efforts to make the community happy. Keep up the good work but try not to call your fans and customers toxic. They are simply passionate.

    Haters-Gonna-Hate-Meme-04.jpg
  • I really see alot of toxicity in these forums. I don't think there is anything wrong with the developers calling that out. When players are calling the developers liars, defrauders and saying they are intentionally changing aspects of the game just to mess up players is very toxic and are personal attacks on the professional character of the developers. Passionate doesn't equate to comments like that.

    Just my 2 cents.
  • So, for those of us sitting with non-100 numbers of GW currency (I have 180 right now).... anything going to come along not costing something ending in -00?

    It would be a really nice move of EA to round up those non-00 token amounts, so players do not sit on them. Or they could change to non-00 token rewards like in Cantina.
This discussion has been closed.