(Dates thus far:
15 Nov 2023
13 Dec 2023
10 Jan 2024
7 Feb 2024
6 Mar 2024
3 Apr 2024 )
Players asked for more and more regular Rare quests — instead, we got a “Rare Quest Day” that… doesn’t necessarily give a Rare Quest.
As with, say, today.
When SG announced the change, they acknowledged that having a Challenge event in the same week was no excuse to put off a Rare quest for the week — then immediately came back with the claim that having an Omega quest in the same week was instead an excuse (and a more regular one!) to put off a Rare instead.
We asked for more regular Rares, and we didn’t really get more regular — we get a schedule that skips one Rare out of every four, in exchange for no more Omegas than we got before, plus “floating” unscheduled Rares that match, or nearly so, the uncertainty in scheduling that existed before.
We asked for slightly more Rares, and instead we are given fewer.
We pointed out the discrepancy and instead, our patience and dedication in asking for a very minor boon, especially compared to the huge explosion in the rate of hero release — not to mention the additional need for max-level ascension materials due to 2LB! — is “rewarded” by being taken as an excuse to give us less.
And this is why I dub this SG Customer unAppreciation Day — when our requests aren’t merely ignored, but seemingly punished.
We will not forget.
Nor will we give up.
After all, there is an eminently simple win-win solution: #52RareQuestsAYear
What to say, they take, take and take more. On the forum we complain, share feelings. In Beta we shout, scream, scream harder and cry.
And the opposite happens. What should happen if we praise and thank SG for what they doing, with all that we can (yes it’s cynic ;-))
There is, for me and most of my ally members, one reason we stay. And that is the community. On one hand sad, on the other maybe a gift. But they know it too, and that is dangerous.
The most counter intuitive part of the whole thing is that if the gave more, they’d receive more.
“Players want more ascension mats”
“Great, chuck another £9.99 deal up”
“How about we give them more in quests, or raise the drop-rate slightly so they can ascend the vast number of heroes we’re dropping?”
“What? Encourage them to enjoy playing the game and be able to use most of the heroes they’ve gambled for”
“Well, now that we’ve added emblems, LB1 materials and LB2 requirements, there’s quite a few more steps. We could put more LB materials behind the paywall - and of course continue to pump out heroes for the big spenders.”
“Hmmm. I don’t know”
“Players would be more inclined to buy LB materials to power up a hero. And with more LB materials on the way (wink) there’ll be even greater requirements. Not to mention the Legendary troops. We don’t have to change anything about our existing money-pit, but we could encourage more people to spend if they felt listened to and could progress without spending”
“So you’re saying if people could progress without paying, we could get more money?”
“Yes. We don’t even have to invest much development resource. Just press a few buttons to give more regular Rare Quests”
I agree - the community of one’s current alliance as well as the community of other players (on the forums, generally).
A danger to SG of relying on the community to provide value (rather than trying to add value for customers themselves) is that if and when part of the community throws up its hands and gives up on the game, it can and eventually will lead to a increasing cascade of loss of playerbase – to wit, if players are relying on other players in order to stick with the game, losing some players will in itself lead to loss of other players, which at some point becomes an increasingly vicious cycle.
I agree completely, having mentioned this myself as well – plus SG has experience with “giving more” with Fated Summon and Soul Exchange.
After all, SG presumably doesn’t have to “give us” those “free” heroes (considering that they didn’t use to, though Fated Summon is also presumably at least partly in response to anti-gambling legislation in certain locales, which is a different story) – but allowing players greater access to more heroes, and critically, having some choice in obtaining heroes, has presumably also driven more spending. After all, if you want to actually USE those pity-counter or SE heroes, you gotta level, ascend, emblem, LB, LB2 them, and perhaps even especially older heroes will need full development to stay alive in the power-rush environment of current releases!
I really, really wish that weren’t true, especially given the very small size of what I’ve proposed to SG.
I’m not even pretending to propose that Rare quest frequency be increased to something that would keep pace with the rate of new hero release (much less additional demands of LB2)…
…nor that it include more of the additional materials we all need these days (original Rare frequency dates from a time when fully ascending and leveling a hero meant it was done).
But look at how long it took to get SG’s attention at all even on only the most recent versions of this discussion:
The collated “Is the rare Quest cancelled for this week?” MASTER thread (over confusion and dismay over SG’s outmoded and sometimes-random opposition to having Rares during…some… Challenge weeks) starts from a post in September 2022. --And that is far from the first time players questioned the scheduling of Rares, and that particular thread was active for a year before SG seemingly took notice with the current schedule.
My original proposal thread Regular Rare quests, INCLUDING challenge event weeks goes back to early May this year, and I’ve been hammering and hammering and hammering away on its behalf for months, enough to finally get enough attention that mods and SG took up the issue. (And I’m not pretending that I’m the only one or the first to bring up Rare quest timing, just among the latest.)
…and what we got is not what we asked for.
Heck, it’s not even that we didn’t get all of what we asked for, it’s that we asked for very slightly more (given the hugely changed pace of the game) and we got LESS seemingly as a result.
I’m not asking for some fundamental change to the game.
I’m not asking for some huge giveaway.
I’m not asking for something that wouldn’t benefit SG as well as players.
Heck, at this point, in part I’m not even “just” asking to be not ignored – I’m asking that player suggestions to try to make the game a tiny bit better not be used as an excuse to make the game worse instead.
–
There’s a reason that when I continuously link to my-reupped “52 Rare Quests a Year” idea thread, forum-sig-style, that I precede the link with “Carthago delenda est”:
History!
Wayyyyyy back in the days of the Roman Republic, Rome fought a series of wars with Carthage. In particular, during the Second Punic War, Italy was invaded by a Carthaginian army led by Hannibal, who not only crossed the Alps with an army (including elephants), but inflicted such a string of staggering defeats on the Romans (including one, Cannae, that still endures as a watchword in military history for “tactical annihilation of a superior force”) that Rome had to resort to a Fabian strategy of essentially refusing to directly engage Hannibal any more to wear down his forces – and Hannibal operated behind enemy lines, on Italian soil, for around 15 years total before eventually being recalled to defend Carthage (and eventual defeat).
To say that Rome was shaken by this sequence of events would be a massive understatement. Huge indemnities and penalties were levied against Carthage, and Carthage was actually working them off.
Enter Cato the Elder, Roman Senator. He was so shocked, incensed, and afraid of Carthage being resurgent ever again that he famously took to ending every speech in the Roman Senate with a phrase that essentially meant “Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed” (rendered variously, but most succinctly as Carthago delenda est), no matter what the topic.
Grain shipments? Carthago delenda est.
Dedication of a new temple? Carthago delenda est.
Happy Thank Your Olive Farmer Day? Carthago delenda est.
Cato hammered and hammered and hammered this point without end until Rome had a pretext to actually attack Carthage again, and in the Third Punic War Carthage was utterly annihilated.
So, yeah.
I’m being stubborn here. Stubborn enough to invoke Cato the Elder’s stubbornness. There is a lot about this game that could be tweaked or fixed or improved, and a lot still worth playing, but I’ve chosen this very small hill to die upon because
this is such a small but still valuable change
this could be done so easily
and it seems foolish and even self-destructively perverse of SG, having heard our request, to not only deny it but, seemingly, move the frequency of Rares in the opposite direction we asked for as a result
So yeah, if it takes hundreds more posts and links and reminders, I’m not going to stop pointing out that it shouldn’t take this many posts.
My stubbornness is, in general, aimed to be on behalf of all players. I’m not even sure what SG’s stubborness is aimed to be on behalf of: very short-term revenue thinking? Because it would certainly seem that SG would benefit more by giving players a tiny increase in Rares.
Plus, there is a bit of my stubbornness that results from SG’s gesture seeming like a deliberate slap in the face to players: “we heard you, and we are making a change because of what you suggested, only HAHA we’re essentially doing the OPPOSITE of what you asked for and pretending we’re doing you a favor!”
No.
THAT is unAppreciation.
And that’s what I’m calling out here.
And while I may be complaining about it – and repeatedly – I am offering a highly viable and very easy alternative that should be a win-win all around.
And I and @Ripobin_The_First have pointed out that a cost-benefit analysis has two sides.
It seems really short-sighted to only say
“this way we could sell an extra 2 or 3 ascension mats a year maybe to some people”
and utterly ignore
“we could instead be selling extra emblems AND LB1 materials AND LB2 materials that players literally cannot use if they DON’T have fully ascended leveled heroes to use them on”
And that’s if customer satisfaction has literally zero value to you.
As it would seem to have to SG.
I mean, they could have just simply ignored player requests, as they so often do, and stayed status quo. (Which isn’t really status quo, when the hero release rate is accelerating and the Rare rate is nowhere near keeping pace.)
But no. They took our request and reversed it not to our gain.
I am getting more than a little tired of being told, either effectively or literally, “maybe you should just spend more.”
Because there is another side to the cost-benefit bit I mentioned above, not just selling more of one thing vs more of other things.
If a company disdains its customers enough, they will vote with their feet. And that’s a loss of ALL revenue from those folks.
And, for that matter, an increasing loss of OTHER players who are, say, mostly still in the game right now because of the community of players.
I don’t know about you, but personally I am more likely to spend money on a product I like from a company I feel like maybe values my business. When a company starts hurting its product quality and signaling that my business isn’t at all valued…
I have noticed the character traits of SG are deceptive, misleading, manupulative, dishonest, and greedy. Its why i stopped spending. SG has shown there hand tine after time, its not a secret, and theyll continue to do the same untill the cash flow drops. Remember the buff for “fan favorite” Ruben, all the nerfs after the hero is tested in BETA and released to the public, the diminishing drop rates that have plumeted since the early days, and the big one for me… They ignore the majority of the player base. How about those Goblin buffs? Good thing there buffing these old heros. Ultimately, im not surprised by the actions of SG, it fits their character profile. Im also not upset. They can run it as they wish, but i wont spend a dime until there actions and words create a cohesion, because when actioms and words dont correlate its deceit. Every player is also able to do as they choose. Im not against anyone spending, but i am against myself spending . Nice post, but i dont think they dont appreciate us. It seems more likely they think were all stupid and will continue to accept being spoon fed dookie. They appreciate this because it makes rhem money, hence they appreciate us. Corporate prays on stupid people, they love em. Im also not sayong anyone is stupid. Its more of a colloquial saying in certain levels of business/government.
With that said, i really do enjoy this game. Its fun to create synergies with my, what some may call, lackluster heros. I enjoy titan hits, and i get to see shiny new heros in wars sometimea. The art designers really do great work too. I know people bash the toon art, but it seems to be on point with the word “toon”. If anyone from the art team reads rhis, “great job and thanks”. They community isbalso really nice to have, even though i dont participate in it much. I enjoy hearing everyones ideas, challenges, and criticism. It helps me maintain a nueitrality with the game. Plus player feedback on heros is on point. Thanks to everyone who has ever posted about a hero. The reviews on yellow 4* goblin convinced me to level her, but im still not sure about lb. Mainly because deprivation, famine, and oppression are strong enough to merit hoarding. Salome
It would seem SGG fails to properly factor in human psychology in some of its decisions.
For example, me feeling cheated out of a War attack won’t make me spend $150 to get more heroes. It makes me want to log off the game for long periods of time.
Me having the Home Screen bombarded by bundles and offers doesn’t make me want to spend more. It makes me feel like a stooge and not want to spend anything at all.
The concept of “give a little get a lot” is as old as time. And it seems appropriate to mention “the first one’s free” as an relevant, if slightly bitter, concept.
I think @BlackZed mentioned in a other post that actually, from a perspective of ‘free stuff’, it’s never been better. The problem lies in what that free stuff is and how the rest of the game (and to use their phrase 'the game economy ') is impacted.
All the ‘good’ stuff is paywalled.
We’ve been over it a million times but in essence the game is top heavy. Too many heroes. If they’re going to release several new heroes A WEEK, there needs to be some concession to support this new economy.
One approach is to offer all the materials you’ll need behind a paywall and isolate all but your biggest spenders.
Another approach is to make all the player base feel valued, that they can compete, that their new hero will be able to be maxed.
Is 4 extra 4* AM a year going to make a huge difference?
No.
But it’s the principle of the matter. There are now several layers ABOVE 4* mats as the choke point to make heroes usable. So releasing this bottleneck and creating it further up the chain makes sense.
Not to mention that any relationship is give and take. At the moment what we’re getting as players is more heroes and increased opportunities to spend money to get or use those heroes. We’re not seeing much sign that we’re expected to do anything else.
People get upset because they’re invested: financially or emotionally. I would argue that @BobTheSnark 's campaign is emotional, and rightly so.
What SG/Zynga/TT have is an invested community that loves the game and wants it to continue.
Current trajectory is purely focused on revenue, with little to no regard to a) a playerbase that includes those who’ve been here since the beginning and b) a playerbase that they could tap into financially if they made it feel like it would be more worthwhile.
Sadly, whether through insane targets, ignorance or because in all the takeovers there’s just more debt to cover - that approach - the sustainable approach - appears to have been lost.
Rather than plug in x3 MV 12 times a day to boost ad revenue, chuck the players a bone and see how they respond. I’d imagine the whales who make most of the revenue don’t have infinite pockets. I might be wrong
I’m also still annoyed at how expensive roster slots get.
I have 285 slots now; it costs 350 gems for 5 more. I will spend the gems, grudgingly; I only spend gems on these and on 30-pulls in Solstice and Black Friday anyway (and occasionally speeding up wanted chests).
However -
With the proliferation of new heroes and new portals, and us being encouraged to summon summon summon, I wish the costs would be lowered
Didn’t they acknowledge this issue in the last Q&A? And the solution was…
Occasional “cheap” deals for roster slots
(On the plus side, I do acknowledge that there are many new sources for obtaining heroes now, like Fated Summon. And I can generally manage 1-2 summons per event, maybe more, as an active player… and gems are decently plentiful… but still. I know I would summon more eagerly if I didn’t have to think — oh wait, will I have enough gems left over to buy more slots?)
Er… I’d like to point out that this is very likely NOT a yearly day: as announced by SG, Customer unAppreciation Day (as defined by "Omega is being used to supplant Rare quests on ‘Rare Quest Day’ ") is actually monthly –
we’ll have another one every four weeks, forever (until and unless SG drops one of their “floating” Rares onto an Omega not-Rare-Quest Rare Quest Day).
In that regard, I’d perhaps prefer the topic remain undated, because until
I’m going to keep on refreshing this thread every CuD every month as long as both it and I persist in this forum and this game. And I HAVE constructive criticism:
#52RareQuestsAYear. It’s easy. It’s right there. It’s been right there, and it’s going to continue to be so!
You’re not wrong. Let me be clear, for anyone who can’t tell because of my proclivity for loquaciousness or my trying very hard to bend over backward to be rational and polite:
I am, in fact, actually quite angry.
And yes, I know this is a little thing.
But I am attempting to use that anger to effect a very small positive change, that if nothing else, can stand as a symbol that maybe, occasionally, SG will actually listen in a positive sense to constructive criticism.
Because right now?
It feels like SG took our comments on board – finally – but used them as excuse to ignore the substance of what we wanted, and make things worse instead of better.
And that kind of attitude toward us as customers I will not silently stand by for.
In particular, I want players who are frustrated and angry to feel like we have a choice other than “suck it up and just take whatever SG is willing to give” and “quit the game.”
If we can actually win tiny improvements occasionally, then it makes it seem like frustrating bits can actually be corrected, and we will stay in the game longer (including, spending or watching ads longer)!
. Nice post, but i dont think they dont appreciate us. It seems more likely they think were all stupid and will continue to accept being spoon fed dookie. They appreciate this because it makes rhem money, hence they appreciate us. Corporate prays on stupid people, they love em. Im also not sayong anyone is stupid. Its more of a colloquial saying in certain levels of business/government.
Salome
And yearly .
