[PSA] An apology for poor event presentation and a bit of spreadsheet

[Sehales]

Hello commanders,

In addition to my personal apology and a few replies in different threads, here is our official update on Puerto Rico situation.

Following yesterday’s global release of the update, we wanted to say a few words about our New Year activities. We know that many of you are upset (to put it mildly) about the Puerto Rico event.

In hindsight, it is clear that our communication about this event was rather poor and as a result we created an expectation that the ship was going to be more accessible to the general player base – we own that. Only hardcore players with a fair number of special signals and camouflages can be reasonably expected to obtain Puerto Rico entirely for free.

Of course, this affects many of you, because most of the players do not sustain that level of activity. Please accept our sincerest apologies: we failed to communicate the degree of dedication required and as a result, for some of you, ruined the Christmas spirit of the whole update.

This is an extremely grindy event. We know this; there is no denying the fact that this part of our NY update was designed with relatively small group of players in mind. And this is the exact reason why this New Year we decided to offer not one, but two premium ships to cater to different degree of activity and dedication: Puerto Rico and Gorizia. But again, we fully admit that we failed to make it clear from the start, which raised people's expectations. Simply put, Gorizia should have been given much more attention in presentation and organization of this event.

We still believe that this event offers everyone a wide selection of different activities, bonuses and items: a tier VII premium ship, four researchable tier VI ships, Premium time, Coal, Steel and Santa's Gift containers for Snowflakes, Directives, Shipyard stages rewards and Daily Shipments as well as Clan Brawls and Ranked Sprint rewards.

We have seen that some of you made calculations for this Puerto Rico event to better understand its requirements. We really appreciate your efforts to help the community. But due to some rounded numbers in our client they are not entirely accurate, so we want to share our core calculations on how to get Puerto Rico. We absolutely understand that these will not turn the grind for PR into easy one, but still believe it's important to have precise and clear information available.

If you decide to go for it and get Puerto Rico for free, you should follow these guidelines:

• The first directive should be completed before building commences;

• Directives 2 – 5 should be completed within 3 days of the directive’s opening;

• The sixth directive should be completed within four days of the directive’s opening;

• The final directive should be completed at the latest 24 hours before the overall event ends;

• You must finish 20 Daily Missions and collect all rewards from Daily Shipments;

• And spend your tokens as soon as possible.

If you are planning to buy one premium booster:

• The first directive should be complete before building commences;

• Directives 2 – 4 should be completed within 3 days of the directive’s opening;

• Directive 5 should be completed within 6 days of the directive’s opening;

• You should finish the first 15 Daily Missions and collect all rewards from Daily Shipments;

• And spend your tokens as soon as possible.

If you are planning to buy two premium boosters:

• The first directive should be completed within 5 days after the directive’s start;

• Directives 2 - 3 should be completed within 6 days of finishing the previous one;

• The fourth directive should be completed within 12 days of finishing the previous one;

• You should finish the first 13 Daily Missions and collect all rewards from Daily Shipments;

• And spend your tokens as soon as possible.

If you are planning to buy three premium boosters:

• The first directive should be completed within 7 days after the directive’s start;

• The second directive should be completed within 7 days of finishing the previous one;

• The third directive should be completed within 14 days of finishing the previous one;

• You should collect all rewards from Daily Shipments;

• You don’t need tokens from Daily Missions at all (they will only give you an additional boost);

• And be sure to spend your tokens as soon as possible.

You can find a table with numbers on all 4 scenarios here (that's a shortened Google Drive link). Again, this information is not intended to sugar coat the PR part of the NY event, but rather to give precise information on how the progress, in fact, works.

[0uchThatHurt]

So no apology for psychologically manipulating people into buying boosters, you know you create a problem then sell a solution that is what we call a snake oil salesman. No apology for falsely saying it would be free when like only 1% of the player base can actually achieve it without spending money. 

 

You're sorry the community didn't like being mislead, not sorry about the poor event or wanting people to spend 18 hours a day grinding for a month to try to get a ship....

[Excavatus]

3 minutes ago, 0uchThatHurt said:

So no apology for psychologically manipulating people into buying boosters, you know you create a problem then sell a solution that is what we call a snake oil salesman. No apology for falsely saying it would be free when like only 1% of the player base can actually achieve it without spending money. 

I'm sorry mate.. not defending anything here..

but they basically said they are apologizing for this....

 

12 minutes ago, Sehales said:

In hindsight, it is clear that our communication about this event was rather poor and as a result we created an expectation that the ship was going to be more accessible to the general player base – we own that

or am I reading something different?

[Yuri_lane]

How about you know, apologize by changing those awful numbers.

[MrFingers]

10 minutes ago, Sehales said:

Please accept our sincerest apologies: we failed to communicate the degree of dedication required and as a result, for some of you, ruined the Christmas spirit of the whole update.

Actions speak louder than words. We've had one too many "sincere apologies" in the past, only for WG to blunder forward on the same path that made those apologies necessary in the first place.  What I see again are words, and zero actions on how to remedy this entire clµsterfck, prevent stuff like this from ever happening in the future ("we've heard your feedback over the Benham, Kuznetsov & Aboyneau, we'll act accordingly"... Yeah right),...

 

14 minutes ago, Sehales said:

Simply put, Gorizia should have been given much more attention in presentation and organization of this event.

Even Gorizia isn't in the same league for requirements than Prinz Eitel Friedrich, Duke of York or Graf Spee were. And that's not taking into account the intermediate rewards for them. 1 flag for 167k firedamage in DD's or Carriers? 100k credits for grinding out 4M credits? 

 

 

And what irks me most is not the whole grind or the abusive nature. It's that I've been lied to, intentionally & brazen-faced. Even when faced with number-backed evidence disputing your claims (like Gorizia being easier to obtain than PEF). 

"Reputation comes by foot and goes by horse", the saying goes. Well, according to NASA, your reputation (and the horse that carries it) now has overtaken Voyager 1 as "farthest manmade object from earth". You can be proud of that.

[Castigador]

@Sehales

 

I know you write what your bosses want you to write so don't take the following personal:

 

Apology NOT accepted

 

What a shipload of crap. Even with your "math" it is clear that even for the most dedicated (but crazy is a better word) it is impossible to get PR for free.

 

You LIED to us!

[0uchThatHurt]

I don't even play CV i haven't even got all the t4 CV's how am i meant to play t6 CV? 

[Sehales]

Please note that due to the update starting on different dates depending on the server, all days in the spreadsheets are shifted by one day on the EU server.

[HMS_Kilinowski]

4 minutes ago, Excavatus said:

but they basically said they are apologizing for this....

I don't want to be technical, but an apology rather works for things in the past. Apologizing for things you do and keep doing takes away the aspect of remorse. It turns an apology into an explanation. Try to apologize to your girlfriend for cheating on her with parts of your body stuck in another woman and you will understand the difference.

So, thanks for the explanation, WG.

[Egoleter]

The apology and promises to do better in the future, I'm sorry to say that, is something that we heard to many times from Wargaming. There was a small timeframe in 2018 when those actually meant something but since then you have done nothing to honor them and despite all our feedback and outcries just made things worse over and over again.

 

This message is a first step but it is very far away from being enough. You have to do a lot better then this if you want to rebuild what you have destroyed. What we need to hear are your plans on how you intent to do right to your players for letting them down this much and losing their trust and causing this much frustration. And then you have to uphold those standards you are promising us here again, as for now they are just empty words.

[Hugh_Ruka]

WG, what is missing in the spreadsheet is what game results you are expecting for a person that can do that for free ?

 

2-5 in 3 days each ? Some of them are like an entire line grind or more !!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS ???

 

I demand to see the first to complete for free list (just a number) of players that actually managed this after the event ... You know without spending any doubloons ....

[Dirpitz]

WG just like 

 

While at the same time knowing that the hype hype they built will already have hooked the whales they feed on, so not caring about the majority of the player base

 

Well I guess they just turned a large portion of the player base into F2P players. 

[Miragetank90]

This whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

Thanks - I guess, but personally I think I'm going to pass on the whole thing this year, even Gorizia. 

 

Thanks for the 4 free crates. 

Peace. 

[0uchThatHurt]

53 minutes ago, Excavatus said:

I'm sorry mate.. not defending anything here..

but they basically said they are apologizing for this....

 

or am I reading something different?

Apologising and carrying on doing the same thing is not an apology. You know I have to explain this to my children too some times, when you say you are sorry you have to change the thing you are doing or you are not really sorry.  

[LoucipherPL]

Poor Sehales. I feel genuinely sorry for the guy on whose shoulders the WG's high brass must have dumped this thankless task of swallowing all the embarassment caused by their own decisions... precisely because he seems to have accumulated the least amount of bad blood with the playerbase.

 

Still, I have to join the opinion of the majority: your apology is more than a day late... and a Fort Knox worth of dollars short.

[Egoleter]

Just a side note: When will this apology be posted to the main page as a news article, or, better yet, as an automated pop-up message in the game?

For a proper apology you need to address all your players, not just those who are active on forums, reddit, or facebook.

[vilyan]

i take a new resolution for this new year. I stop to give money to WG who spit on us with this stupid event that 99.9% of people have no chance to do.

 

WG, if you want to lose all your customers, you are on the good way !

 

 

 

 

[BlackFish__]

It is not the presentation, but the event is terrible as it is. If you intended to turn the majority of your player base into F2P players to get a few whales milked, I must congratulate on a job well done.

[hogger4169]

If the event was wade poorly and $Wg$ was fixing that in a reasonable time, the apology would be accepted.

But after all the negative comments storm nobody went in the forums and on the portal to express their "apology" and the post is like it wasn't written.

SO, YOU WANT ME TO FORGIVE YOU AND KEEP SPENDING? FIX THIS TO 1/5 OF THE REQUIREMENTS AND APOLOGISE ON THE PORTAL. NO MORE POSTS, ONLY ACTIONS AND MAYBE ME, THE CUSTOME WIL...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...TRUST YOU SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE

 

.

[MarcoGn97]

The day Wargaming will abandon spreadsheets, this game will become a real, enjoyable experience...but it won't, it will remain a "numbers say it's great, but in the game it's f*cked up". 

[DanSilverwing]

I have to give an upvote for a well-crafted and sincerely worded statement.

 

Personally I would have gone for a fresh start, status quo ante, with more reasonable numbers for all Directives, and started for real on the 16th with an extended end date.

 

Oh well. Damage done.

 

I think you should try to do something for those who have bought boosters without fully realising the amount of grind still required, whether that is a fast-track to a roll-back of their account or some other way to refund them.

[UltraRos]

10 minutes ago, DanSilverwing said:

I have to give an upvote for a well-crafted and sincerely worded statement.

 

Personally I would have gone for a fresh start, status quo ante, with more reasonable numbers for all Directives, and started for real on the 16th with an extended end date.

 

Oh well. Damage done.

 

I think you should try to do something for those who have bought boosters without fully realising the amount of grind still required, whether that is a fast-track to a roll-back of their account or some other way to refund them.

I allready have send a ticket to support to ask back my 6k doubloons i spended on the first one, lets see what their answer wil be.

 

[LordMorzano]

This is no apology. I feel sorry for U man, you have to write something to calm down angry comunity. 

 

It is really nice how people from WG are trying to milk a players. And situation with Puerto Rico is purely prove. 240€ for a imaginary ship in a game ? Are they drunk ? Or glue what they are eating was more toxic ?

 

 Whole game is set to pay really good money. T8 - T10 are not playable without premium accout - if you want to play hight tiers without PA - it will economicaly ruin You in a game. Imagine, most of players are average at their best. 1 win to 1 lose in better case. One losed battle with T10 is equal to 3 win games with T6 to get silver back.
So people are forced to pay a premium account or use premium camos/flags or buying a T8 premium ship.

 

Also prices for premium ships are for some people really high. 

Alaska - 63.49€
Roma - 44.08€
Tirpitz - 42.10€

 Imagine, people from my region earns 600-700€ average as monthly wage. It is also night and weekend shifts inclooded.

They pay rent, they have childrens, they have to eat, pay for mobile phones/eletricity/gasoline, etc. They are fans of WoWs, but what is better ... to buy a new shoes for kids or buying some imaginary ship into a game ? Imagine how much effort it is cost to them, if they earn 3€/hour. 
 Small question ... what is better .. to sell 5x ship for 20€ or 1x 44€ ... becouse I know people who want some "products", but they are expensive for them. And from WG side is "no mercy"for beiing poor. 

And this is not only my country, that is almost whole eastern Europe.

[Skill0r1987]

1 hour ago, Sehales said:

Please note that due to the update starting on different dates depending on the server, all days in the spreadsheets are shifted by one day on the EU server.

Wait, WHAT? 

Does that mean EU players have even LESS time to complete the directives??

 

Like, seriously?

[CaptBoardy]

40 minutes ago, 0uchThatHurt said:

Apologising and carrying on doing the same thing is not an apology. You know I have to explain this to my children too some times, when you say you are sorry you have to change the thing you are doing or you are not really sorry.  

Hi. He was not apologising for the event, but rather the lack of communication explaining what would be required.  To this effect he is trying to address this error.

Aside to this, please try and face up to the fact the PR, at the beginning will be a rare ship. Perhaps as it should be. Who wants to face in battle a fleet of PR's because everyone has one and wants to drive it.