Thorrium said:

Hey Miffy, so I understand your criticism the game is currently dealing with some issues that was hoped to be fixed in the hotfix/patch that was released earlier this week.  Currently the support team is analyzing the data that has been collected by people that suffered from crashes/freezes after downloading the patch.  It's a priority.

Lastly regarding the news, more specifically the next patch/update which was teased yesterday on facebook.  I don't have a date, but I have heard rumors about it being in a few weeks.  I am sure a date will be announced when one is set in stone.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Thorrium~

Hey Thorrium, I completely understand that things don't always go according to plan and that things have to be pushed back sometimes. That being said I really want someone from Plarium to see this because it would fix most of your PR problems. Firstly Under promise and over deliver. If Plarium would simply say they have a patch coming in 2 months rather than one then perhaps they get done early and we get a positive surprise instead of the constant negative surprises of them saying they will have something done soon and then having to be disappointed. once or twice sure, but it seems to be a fairly normal trend to say something and have it be pushed back. At some point you gotta start planning for that kind of thing.

Thorium said: 

Lastly regarding the news, more specifically the next patch/update which was teased yesterday on facebook.  I don't have a date, but I have heard rumors about it being in a few weeks.  I am sure a date will be announced when one is set in stone.

Thorrium~

Oh just lovely... a few weeks because you guys can not tell people the truth when you can not solve a problem and keep holding stuff back. That’s excellent.. a few weeks hah what a joke.

Bahamut said:

Hey Thorrium, I completely understand that things don't always go according to plan and that things have to be pushed back sometimes. That being said I really want someone from Plarium to see this because it would fix most of your PR problems. Firstly Under promise and over deliver. If Plarium would simply say they have a patch coming in 2 months rather than one then perhaps they get done early and we get a positive surprise instead of the constant negative surprises of them saying they will have something done soon and then having to be disappointed. once or twice sure, but it seems to be a fairly normal trend to say something and have it be pushed back. At some point you gotta start planning for that kind of thing

I actually agree, I would also rather have them positively surprise us then disappointing the players. And regarding getting the info to a Plarium employee, I promise you that I will make sure Marius sees this.

Hopefully it gets better, more people are being hired and trained to hopefully get the game over the current crunch it's in.  This should allow CM's to engage more easily with people.

Bahamut said:

Secondly just communicate. I have some limited knowledge of these kinds of projects and normally you don't get to the day things are supposed to go out and realize that you won't be able to do it. You know at least a couple days in advance you won't be able to meet your goal. Just tell us. It feels like Plarium is scared everytime and so they simply stay silent until it's dragged out of them which makes them appear less trustworthy. Many less people would be angry if you simply told them things as you learned them. I hope this helps.

This was touched upon a little above, but again yes.  I agree with you, more transparency would be nice.   But it's currently a question of getting the problems solved and getting more people so that information can be communicated out to the player-base.

Just look at the amount of moderators, the last 3 weeks the game has gotten I believe 13 new moderators, there is being trained a new cm, and more support staff.   So hopefully there will be more engagement with people.
I know personally that it's a horrible feeling when you got an issue and it don't seem like the staff or moderators takes it seriously.

Tekstone said:

Oh just lovely... a few weeks because you guys can not tell people the truth when you can not solve a problem and keep holding stuff back. That’s excellent.. a few weeks hah what a joke.

So Tekstone, what would the solution be?

I can't say what date a patch, or a fix will come out as I don't know.
But if I share the rumors I hear, which as I said is just that, rumors. Then it's not good enough.
And if nothing is shared and we keep quiet, then that's the issue.

We are trying to help the player-base with the issues they got, as well as share the information that we can.  But we can't please everyone.

Thorrium said:

Tekstone said:

Oh just lovely... a few weeks because you guys can not tell people the truth when you can not solve a problem and keep holding stuff back. That’s excellent.. a few weeks hah what a joke.

So Tekstone, what would the solution be?

I can't say what date a patch, or a fix will come out as I don't know.
But if I share the rumors I hear, which as I said is just that, rumors. Then it's not good enough.
And if nothing is shared and we keep quiet, then that's the issue.

We are trying to help the player-base with the issues they got, as well as share the information that we can.  But we can't please everyone.

It isn’t a matter of pleasing everyone, but a little honesty goes a long way, even more so are small things here and there to keep us motivated and keep us interested. You don’t need massive patches to keep us interested every 3 months, because in 3 months you will loose interest. 

Give a fusion to keep us occupied until a better patch comes out. Give players a purpose or distraction to keep them occupied until you can push a successful and working large patch. Raid is a wonderful game but the lack of the games developers word being upheld is demoralizing.

I spent several minutes writing this great reply and I click on the wrong reply button, god dang it... so this is attempt #2.

Tekstone said

It isn’t a matter of pleasing everyone, but a little honesty goes a long way, even more so are small things here and there to keep us motivated and keep us interested.

I don't think any of the CM's or the Moderators are lying to you, or withholding information. On the contrary I believe we are attempting to share as much information as possible.

I believe in transparency, and I agree that more open dialog between the CM's (and the rest of us) and the player-base would be a good thing. And It seems that the ones that's in charge agrees with that idea, as we are getting more moderators, more cm's and more support staff. In part to overcome the crunch that the staff is currently dealing with, but also so that there can be more dialog with the players.

Tekstone said

You don’t need massive patches to keep us interested every 3 months, because in 3 months you will loose interest. 

Give a fusion to keep us occupied until a better patch comes out. Give players a purpose or distraction to keep them occupied until you can push a successful and working large patch.

I actually didn't know about a planned fusion, nor that it was cancelled. But I agree with you, it would be great if we could get minor content updates with each patch (hotfix), the thing is that it's not just made with a snap of a finger.

I done a little coding myself (very, very little!) and I know some people that work with design, and from what I understand it's not just a matter of deciding that we are going to launch a new character, or make a new fusion available. It takes time to plan properly. And everything is also affected with how the game is currently doing. The crunch I mentioned earlier due to the issue with devices getting kicked of the game, (crash/freezes) more then likely is affecting how fast things gets sent out.

That said again I do agree with you! And it's something other people have suggested as well (on discord we take player suggestions and save them), so it's not a completely new idea.

Tekstone said

Raid is a wonderful game but the lack of the games developers word being upheld is demoralizing.

Small interesting things here and there to keep people busy while awaiting for hot fixes and large updates is how games work. Like the expected fusion in May that was cancelled is what upsets people. Especially people that have done everything, that can be done to date.

Yes its not great when things falls though, I think we all agree on that fact. But sadly sometimes things either falls though, or gets pushed back.

And remember we (well the CM's really, they are the ones who usually announce things) are cought inbetween a rock and a hard place.

One one hand we wan't to announce stuff, but if it's wrong or get delayed then people get's frustrated. And if nothing is announced, then people become angry that they don't get feedback.

The solution seems to be to take it really slowly, and only come with a statement when they are ready, and are sure it can be delivered. But again that certainty takes time.

Now with that all said and done, this thread is still about "face of darkness" and we need to keep it to that subject. So if you want to continue talking, then lets make a thread in "game-discussion" or you can join the discord where I am online.

It's not that you are not allowed to talk (really I actually enjoy this chat), but we got to move it to somewhere else.

Cheers.

Thorrium~

Hey, everyone. I see this discussion is going off-topic, so I'll ask you to redirect posts that are related to the teaser to a more appropriate thread - as always, you are free and welcome to create one. But I will respond to some of the concerns and points raised.

Roadmap

This is something I have pushed for myself, and I am just as disappointed as you are that it cannot be presented at this time. Unfortunately, the current situation makes it nearly impossible to pinpoint specific features and the order of their release, and thus a roadmap would be inaccurate and redundant. I hope that we'll be able to put something of this sort out in the future, but it won't happen right now.

Fusion

It is true that the date of the new Fusion event has been changed several times due to several factors. The technical difficulties we've faced made it necessary to shift focus for a while, and Fusion could not be delivered on time. Still, I have some good news as well - there will be a Fusion event in 1.8, and it is meant to be much more interesting than what we've had before. We are also going to add a few more options for obtaining Champions that you need for Fusion, but that's something you'll need to check out in the news when that event hits. 

Release Delays

I've noticed that there is a strong sentiment among the people posting here that adding X or adding Y will only take "half an hour of Dev time". If only that were so. 

Implementing a new feature, even a small one requires several steps at the very least:

• Game Designers figuring out how the feature works, what the balance should be, etc.
• The actual code being written
• Additional visuals being drawn, if necessary
• The new feature added to a test server, there to be thoroughly reviewed by QA
• Once the tests are done, this new code needs to be added to the live server
• Sometimes, that is not enough, and the live server needs to be restarted fully in order for the changes to be implemented

So, even a new Fusion would have required a lot of work. And, what's more important, it would require resources - both people and time. And those resources were thrown at tackling the ongoing issues.

On the matter of those very issues, we are not giving any updates right now because we do not have a reliable ETA. Our specialists ran numerous tests, and the results were inconclusive. Currently, we are working with Unity to locate and remove the root cause of the problem, but I cannot make any promises in regards to time frames. We are doing everything in our power to resolve crashes that affect certain device groups ASAP.