Idea to repair / rebuild trust with the community

[Cauthey]

Hey there Funcom! More specifically - hey there @AndyB !

In my short period of time back on the forums, I’ve noticed a lot of angst, frustration, and mistrust among the community. I think that stems from the fact that the community does not feel that you are hearing them. That you aren’t listening to and considering their feedback.

If you would like to repair this, and rebuild your stock with the community, you might want to consider hosting a weekly LiveStream where all you do is ANSWER QUESTIONS and concerns from the player base.

The few LiveStreams that I’ve tuned into recently you’ve put off questions to the end, and you never actually get to them. Please consider hosting something (it doesn’t have to be long - 30 minutes a week would probably suffice) where you focus specifically on talking to the community. Talk directly to us. Don’t bring another Funcom associate to pal around with. Don’t show us features of the game. But actually talk to us. Take notes. Bring pen and paper, and write stuff down that you see us expressing in the chat. Make an actionable list.

Sure - you won’t be able to capture everything. And you won’t be able to make all of the people happy all of the time. But if you make the effort to connect with us - I think you will find that we are not the ornery bunch of foul mouth complainers that we sometimes probably appear to be.

Connect with us. Show us that you actually give a rip about what you are changing in OUR game.

Thanks for considering.

[GodlyVoice]

I doubt this will solve anything as most players rather vent and call names without anything worth saying. Even the few times they made Q&A, with all the valid questions, Funcom decided to just ignore most issues and pretend they don’t exist, I mean, look at the new inventory system, most ppl were against it since beta.
Best and most efficient way to make Funcom listen is vote with your wallet.

[Taemien]

With this community? Their best option is to keep going with how they are doing. Whenever they admit fault, the community uses that against them. Whenever they have two way discussions with the masses, people think that ideas are promises and then will yammer on for years about why X thing wasn’t implemented when it was said in passing that it is something they would ‘like’ to do, and not ‘are going’ to do.

@GodlyVoice

Best and most efficient way to make Funcom listen is vote with your wallet.

Its a good direction, but it will actually take more than that. There’s metrics on everything a player does. From how they allocate points, to what they build, to when they login. Everytime you login, Funcom Live Services records that. Everytime someone opens up the challenges, its recorded, everytime you look at the bazaar page, that’s counted too.

Not only do you have to stop buying, but you need to stop playing as well. Like not even launching the application. The question is, are the issues great enough for people to actually have the fortitude to do so? That’s not my question. That’s Funcom’s question.

When people login to ‘just refresh decay’. Its a login. Even if they aren’t actively playing, its still a login. Which means someone still has the game installed. Someone is still getting updates. Someone is still able to view the Battlepass and Bazaar. And you know what? FC is correct to make that assessment.

Because even when a player becomes a serial refresher and doesn’t play anymore. They are going to eventually get curious and ‘just take a look’. Eventually they might see something they like and may be tempted to pull the trigger and purchase something, or God forbid purchase some crom coin to do so. Its human nature to give in to temptation if there is already a slight desire. Which there is if one isn’t quitting cold turkey.

This isn’t an advocation for a boycott. The information above isn’t my opinion, but just the stating facts of the situation for players to make better informed decisions. You can continue to login as normal and endure the issues you might have or decide not, that’s entirely up to you.

Just understand I won’t be partaking in such an activity (or rather the ceasing of such) myself as the issues I personally have aren’t frustrating enough to warrant such a response.

But the above mentioned actions are what is required from a good chunk of the playerbase to get drastic changes in direction. Right now a few forum posts or a few messages in a livestream chat are just the normal every day rumblings about changes. Don’t think for a moment that such activities aren’t expected or accounted for. They aren’t surprised or shocked at the responses.

[erjoh]

Most of the initial feedback on Chapter 4 has nothing to do with bugs or anything but a direction of design that is not desired by many on here. That is something that is hard to have this back and forth because what they are wanting to do is the mix it up and try new things to encourage growth. If we cannot spin our minds into a growth paradigm and are just determined to defend status quo or bring back times where the playerbase was half of what it is now, then we aren’t talking the same language. We have to make strong business cases to our concerns in the game.

[DanQuixote]

Well - my ‘business’ argument is that I know how much less money I have spent on the game since they switched to the BP/Bazaar model - and I know that unless the promised hotfix restores the majority of the interface functions that have been stripped away, I will not be logging in to the game at all, which will mean I spend even less money (ie: none). Obviously, I’m just one player - I’ve seen plenty of people on here complain in one breath and then talk about what they just bought from the bazaar in the next breath. In the end, I can only speak for myself.

[LostBrythunian]

While this one lauds the effort and enthusiasm…

They had a Dev response that answered some community questions.

Age of War - Chapter 4 Q&A

[image] Hey there Exiles, Recently, we announced the Age of War: Chapter 4. After our developer stream, we kept on listening to you on our social channels and noted down some of the most asked questions and things you are curious about the new chapter. Enjoy reading and let us know if you have anything else you are curious about! Is the Siege of Al-Merayah going to stay in the game? Yes, it’s not going anywhere! The fortress, its inhabitants, and treasures within will remain. The area relati…

It did not improve the general mood.

No amount of Q&A will help if the As are not to the Qer’s liking.

Edit: what we must keep in mind is that it isn’t our game.
It’s their game. We just pay to play it. We are customers. And sometimes, a business decides that they don’t want certain customers anymore.

[jmk1999]

@LostBrythunian

No amount of Q&A will help if the As are not to the Qer’s liking.

Just one example was the dyers bench. That one came out of left field and did nothing to justify the need to change it.

[LostBrythunian]

This one’s favourite point of personal rage.

In the previous chapters, they made the combat unenjoyable.
So this one noted that the game had become blocks and dolls…
And so with this update, they came for the doll’s ease of wardrobe modifications.

Nothing is safe, no player exempt, every aspect of the game must be made an odious chore.

Ayesh.

[erjoh]

What I normally do is look at the change and ask if this change was in the game from the very beginning would it have been better or worse. For the dye bench thing, I have to say it would be for the better as it does bring reason to the bench and none of us would have taken offense that you have to take the armor off to dye it to a customized special condition. But because we were accustomed to being able to dye on the fly, it upsets us that its now regulated to a large bench. Any new players coming in wouldn’t know any better and would just put the armor in the bench, get their custom design, and be happy about it.

Compare that to removing fish traps from the wells and it’s not even a close comparison and removed a function of a significant placeable (large well) and made it useless with the smaller version equally viable, aesthetically better looking, and lower cost. The new player just scratches their head on why they would even bother creating a larger well in the first place when us vets knew of it’s potential that was revised away.

[DanQuixote]

That’s your perspective (and fair enough) - but I could equally argue that new players coming in would question why they find all this dye in the world if they can’t use it until they craft a level-locked bench (that’s probably bigger than they were expecting - given that they will mostly have crafted only basic or improved workbenches up to that point, not the larger tier 3s).

Meanwhile, I have never cared at all about not being able to put fish traps in the large wells - because I never liked that even as a concept (and I still use large wells when they fit what I am building). Different players have different wants and needs from the game. There is no objective ‘better or worse’, only how it impacts the individual player.

[erjoh]

Yep and you have every right to complaint and voice the concern. Its how democracy works. Everyone should have a voice and a platform to be heard from.