Important message for the community

[Andrewbassg]

53 minutes ago, Ghesthar said:

Is there a good way to construct that filter?

 

If an actually objective sample could be obtained, this would be great. However, I have no idea how one would go about doing so.

It is impossible to "construct" an "ideal" filter. There are always tradeoffs even IRL regarding physical things. And we actually talking about things related to humans and humans are most of the time ..... subjective. But what humans have and physical things dont....is intent. In 90% of the cases good intent solves problems, in my experience.

53 minutes ago, Ghesthar said:

Your list of people who are 'impartial' are, functionally, people you like and agree with. Mine, if I could come up with a list, would probably be conceptually identical. They may or may not intersect. Most players in most games (so, probably this one too) do not interact with content creators, streamers, forums, or subreddits. Picking prominent figures from these give a snapshot of the mood of the dominant element of that subgroup, not a snapshot of the player base as a whole.

Well IMHO those are who actually tried to make the game a better experience for all of us and are capable to look behind and put aside selfish motives and interests to a high degree. also to act for the betterment of the game. Are they humans  and can make mistakes? Of course. But in  this kind of matters you can't go for 90% which is what Weegee tried very hard, every time and failed to achieve. In fact If one  manages 70%, is on good grounds.. And I didn't mean necessarily percentage of the playerbase.

 

Because you see actually there is no difference in what the players want. None, whatsoever. A better and fun game experience. However, how to achieve that and what exactly constitutes those  experiences, that's when the inherent human differences will come to light. But just like in cooking one tries to put in the right amount of ingredients. and then the meal could be delicious.

With the emphasis on tries

53 minutes ago, Ghesthar said:

You might be happy with the set of biases created with that snapshot. Others, like myself, would not be. WG probably has better data on how many people are in which 'segment' and may be able to choose or filter a bit based on that, but otherwise this sort of 'council' of players seems kind of sketchy do me.

The problem with Wg's data is that it could be misinterpreted. As it actually happened. And WG's interests not necessary coincide with those of the players. :) Again, as it happened.

[LeopardXI]

@MrConway

Only time will tell what is going to happen with the game according to the devblogs.

Thanks for responding the way you did by the way. I appreciate it.

 

Also, after seeing the 10.8 video, there is definitely movement in the right direction.

And I also know all of these problems won't be done in just a matter of months since said problems are vast and numerous.

 

Good luck and fair seas, Perhaps we meet again.

 

[Ghesthar]

31 minutes ago, Andrewbassg said:

 A better and fun game experience.

Yes. This is what everyone wants.

 

However, what constitutes that varies widely. Just like in cooking, in fact: you might think something is delicious, I don't care for it. Everyone wants a delicious meal, but what you think constitutes a delicious meal and what someone else does do not necessarily match.

 

And yes, of course there are trade-offs. There are trade-offs in everything. But again, this comes down to issue preference and prioritization. These do not match person to person or group to group, so the question is, really, 'how do you achieve a 'good enough' balance' not 'how do you construct a perfect filter'

[Charaid]

@MrConway

 

Soon: Copyright 2004-2019 Wargaming Ltd. All rights reserved. "Soon" does not imply any particular date, time, decade, century, or millennia in the past, present, and certainly not the future. "Soon" shall make no contract or warranty between Wargaming Ltd and the end user. "Soon" will arrive some day, Wargaming does guarantee that "soon" will be here before the end of time. Maybe. Do not make plans based on "soon" as Wargaming will not be liable for any misuse, use, or even casual glancing at "soon.

 

Nice one

[Wiochi]

On 9/2/2021 at 4:00 PM, Crysantos said:

Community Contributor Program. When we created our CCTP, our goal was to help talented folks interested in our game create content and grow their channels. Right now it's clear that a lot of things in the Program do not work as they should, which leads to frustration and failed expectations even though some other parts are running well. We will update the Program, both in terms of rules and the way we work with it internally. We expect to have some sort of internal plan and first action points ready in the second half of September, and then proceed with the changes during this Autumn.

@Crysantos And what about WG DPP (Wargaming Developers Partner Program)? this program allows you to create external tools like wows-numbers.com. Access to API is granted in DPP. Sadly, API is kind of dead. Last features for WoWS were added in 2017. So there is no information about clan battles, no submarines, no new ranked seasons/sprints. Without an up-to-date API external tools and sites will die 😢😢😢

[Siebeneisern]

Blah, blah, blah. WG and their petty little word games, they haven't got a clue how to respond to people. All they want from the players is their money, they aren't interested in anything else. Me, for one, I'm done with WG, they aren't getting any more from me.

[Ashmodiel]

On 9/6/2021 at 9:26 AM, MrConway said:

Puerto Rico was clearly a mistake considering the amount of gametime to get her, and I get your wider point.

 

Sorry, but I don't buy the explanation with the phrase "mistake". A mistake could be what someone showed in the thread - writing the name of the ship in Cyrillic in the English text.

 

After all, every event you organise has carefully calculated thresholds of points and achievements to be gained, it is prepared for a long time and there can be no mistake here. There may be typos, wrong ship symbols, but not the whole idea of the missions, point thresholds and so on. All this is carefully counted and was calculated to force players to spend money.

 

The biggest problem for the people preparing this event is that they are completely disconnected from the reality of the game and work everything out with a spreadsheet in hand. This approach won't work, because missions can't be designed by someone who has no idea about the game at all, because he doesn't play it.

 

On 9/6/2021 at 9:26 AM, MrConway said:

We do time-gate many events and items to incentivize people being and remaining active, absolutely. I can understand that this is frustrating if you are not a super active and consistent player, but conversely I hope you can understand that we do want to encourage and reward regular activity. Its always been the case that those who play the most, get the most.

 

Sorry, but since you know very well that the vast majority of players are people who work, your only motivation for doing such short-lived missions is to extract money from them. Something you are so criticised for. No one is complaining about you making money, but practically everyone resents you for monetizing the game so aggressively.

 

The only thing you encourage players to do with this approach is to give up on the game or uninstall it completely.

 

What encouraged me to play regularly, whether in WoWS or WoT, were the carefully thought out marathons, lasting 4-6 weeks, with no missions to complete every day, no missions launched only after others were completed, and so on.

 

That way I could schedule the game for myself, and even if I had a busy week at work, I could make it up the next week. This encouraged regular play, it was a nice challenge and gave me the satisfaction of accomplishing a goal and made me want to buy a premium account or other things.

 

Can I have the satisfaction of a two week marathon that involves forcing me to play 8hrs a day because otherwise I might not make it? And can I have the satisfaction of a gun put to my head or a knife put to my ribs?

 

A company that behaves in such a way is not worthy of respect or money, and especially not worthy of trust. Yes, nobody is forcing me to play. And you know what, in fact, I can play neither WoWS nor WoT, I can spend my money elsewhere.

 

People who want a return to 2016 just want that old game atmosphere. The times when the company was still in touch with its players and its developers had an idea of what the game looked like in practice, not from the code and test server side.

 

On 9/6/2021 at 9:26 AM, MrConway said:

We're not intentionally ignoring questions, please feel free to re-ask and tag us in them if we missed them. In megathreads like these many questions naturally get missed and we often focus on the ones that get asked the most.

 

Great, so I will return to the Turry's case. He has published statistics showing that developers have stopped playing WoWS and have virtually no idea about the game they are developing. As punishment, Turry was stripped of his CC status and was insulted with a promo code.

 

You apologized to him, released another code, but after all, this is not the end of the matter and fixes the problem. I have seen absolutely no reference anywhere to the stats he gave and the fact that the developers are not playing the game they are developing.

 

And no, the "they play a lot on the test server" explanation doesn't work in this case, just as "they're too busy" doesn't work. That's their job, and a developer can't develop a game well if they don't play a version of it available to every player and on the same terms.

 

Will someone please comment on this? Will someone say "from now on developers will have to play at least 100 battles a month so they don't lose touch with the players and the game"? Or will we hear a general "this is a problem we need to look into" and that will be the end of it?

 

On 9/6/2021 at 9:26 AM, MrConway said:

This is one of the points we really need to improve in, because considering the time and effort we as a team put into collecting and processing your feedback, we really should have something to show you for it in the end.

 

Yes we do have contact with the larger playerbase, many of whom never come to the forums, watch streams or really do much else than play the game. But we acknowledge that we need to pay more attention to the people more actively choosing to engage with us.

 

The problem is that I have been hearing such explanations for years. If I heard them for the first time, I would say "OK, the company is beating its chest, they will do something about it".

In the case of a company in which one has completely lost confidence, such explanations are empty. They have absolutely no meaning.

 

We know who is responsible for the CV rework. Two and a half years have passed and CVs are still a class that is unbalanced and has a negative impact on the game. No matter how many spreadsheets you pull out, all players are well aware of the problems with CVs, they have been stated repeatedly. The latest proof is the ban on ships having smoke on board.

 

In any company that would want to prove to the players, the person responsible for such a colossal failure would face the consequences and they would be made public, as would a comprehensive plan to fix what that person screwed up.

 

What do we see in reality? All feedback on aircraft carriers is ignored. There are no significant changes (changes to the pattern of attack by aircraft with rockets is far too little to talk about feedback being noticed), former CCs are talking straight about arrogant responses from exactly the same person.

 

Two and a half years of ignoring, despising or even actively ridiculing comments and feedback from CCs and players just about the aircraft carriers, and yet there are other problems. Why should anyone believe that you will change anything?

[Andrewbassg]

4 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

However, what constitutes that varies widely. Just like in cooking, in fact: you might think something is delicious, I don't care for it. Everyone wants a delicious meal, but what you think constitutes a delicious meal and what someone else does do not necessarily match.

 :) But you don't get it :) The core meal is already proven delicious. They just need to remember that and also to get rid of the last two years of...added ingredients.:) Note the plural. Back to da roots

4 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

And yes, of course there are trade-offs. There are trade-offs in everything. But again, this comes down to issue preference and prioritization. 

Very much yes. I mean...that's the problem. Because that shift happened in the last 2 years.

4 hours ago, Ghesthar said:

 These do not match person to person or group to group, so the question is, really, 'how do you achieve a 'good enough' balance' not 'how do you construct a perfect filter'

Like I already said. But great chef's are celebrated, because of their talents and their ability to find that balance.   Still,  every creative process has a....side effect. People who create always leave  a piece of themselves in their creation.  Which unfortunately  could lead to burnout. 

Because biz is just biz, but creating....that's a whole different cake..

[Aragathor]

 

WG, WG never learns.

[Andrewbassg]

33 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

 

WG, WG never learns.

Oh my.....

 

And that's LWM's reaction. I mean...  the TOS compliant one.

 

23 minutes ago, LittleWhiteMouse said:

It appears that Wargaming has followed through on making @Elias_K_Grodin (formerly Gneisenau013) a scapegoat. @Femennenly pointed out that he's no longer working at Wargaming.  I am not okay with this.  It was not his fault any of this happened.  There are two people I hold responsible for what started all of this and Gneisenau013 isn't either one of those people.

 

Confirmed by Ev1n_NA

 

9 minutes ago, Ev1n_NA said:

Yes, Gneisenau013 has left Wargaming. Other than that we are not going to discuss the internal affairs of the company nor any staffing decisions. We wish the best to Marvin and are grateful to him for his work in Wargaming.

[Andrewbassg]

Also it seems that a LOT of folks are watching the development

 

 

 

[Aragathor]

And another one!

 

 

Guys, stop pouring gasoline over the fire. Seriously.

[Sunleader]

7 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

And another one!

 

 

Guys, stop pouring gasoline over the fire. Seriously.

 

I am not Surprised to be Honest.

 

This kind of Blamegame Outburst is unfortunately a fairly common Result when a Company Faces a Bigger Scandal or have otherwise managed to Agitate the Community enough to make the News.

 

When Big things go Wrong in a Big Company what happens is that the Chain of Command is Reporting Failure Upwards.

Small Scale Mistakes and Messups will only go to the Respective Level. They wont be Reported Upwards by the Guy handing out Punishment.

But if Mistakes grow Big then even the Gigher Ups will have to tell their Higher ups what happened and get Scolded.

Needless to say when a Situation grows so out of hand that the Directors of entire Sections or Studios get called in by the Company Owners, Partners, Shareholder whatever.

They will be Pi**ed beyond anything.

Directors are not used to being Berated and needing to Explain themselves. So they often go into Ragemode and will let their Frustration out on anyone below them and especially on whoever they deem responsible for them being (in their own eyes) humiliated by being treated like an underling that needs to be berated for his Actions and explain how he screwed up.

 

It seems in this case the one Malik holds responsible if the Evil CCs and Community which dare Critisize his Creation.

 

 

My Condolences to the Guys actually Working under Malik. Guess they have to be Pretty careful about what they Say or do right now.

 

 

While this makes me a Bit Sad. It does however also make me a little Hopeful. Because if someone on this Level of Leadership took enough of a Beating that he went into Ragemode. Then it seems that the Highest Level of Wargaming was Reached with this Uproar and is likely not very Satisfied with how the Situation was handled.

 

 

 

[Aragathor]

11 minutes ago, Sunleader said:

While this makes me a Bit Sad. It does however also make me a little Hopeful. Because if someone on this Level of Leadership took enough of a Beating that he went into Ragemode. Then it seems that the Highest Level of Wargaming was Reached with this Uproar and is likely not very Satisfied with how the Situation was handled.

There is an old Slavic saying that I've seen in that CIS thread:

 

The fish rots from the head.

 

The guys at the top that now rage? They are responsible for the situation we are in. They are just pissed that their manservants can't keep the rabble from disturbing their meal.

[Andrewbassg]

Well...it seems that it was a bit early to beat the drums....

 

4 minutes ago, Avalon304 said:

He was transferred to the WoT team and was still posting in an official capacity as early as this morning:

 

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/651351-amx-50-foch-b-fast-track-bundle-offers/page__p__12911936#entry12911936

 

Its likely that since he's no longer on the Warships side he just had his admin access to these forums removed. Until he himself says something making assumptions doesnt get anyone anywhere.

 

Still, if anything, it is clear that you guys have a LOT of trust to regain.....

[Sunleader]

5 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

There is an old Slavic saying that I've seen in that CIS thread:

 

The fish rots from the head.

 

The guys at the top that now rage? They are responsible for the situation we are in. They are just pissed that their manservants can't keep the rabble from disturbing their meal.

 

Well thats the thing.

They dont see it that way.

 

In Their Eyes they are just being dragged down by their Subordinates messing up and them being Responsible for that.

 

People tend to Forget that. But alot in the World depends on the Viewpoint.

 

[LeopardXI]

The Yukon debacle is sadly another one of those PR disasters where Wargaming pressed their own matters and ignored others. Most outraging fact is that this happened with one of the most beloved CC's (LWM) out there.

 

53 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

There is an old Slavic saying that I've seen in that CIS thread:

 

The fish rots from the head.

 

The guys at the top that now rage? They are responsible for the situation we are in. They are just pissed that their manservants can't keep the rabble from disturbing their meal.

Sad but true... It is saddening that it had to be this way since this could have so easily been avoided. The sheer amount of outrage is testiment to that.

 

It is one thing for the project manager involved to resign... but considering the fact that it took many weeks before Wargaming responded the way they SHOULD have.... well, I'm not going to beat a dead horse here, I did that a few times already. See my earlier posts for that.

 

Also, this happened weeks ago (Late June). Statements have been said since. All we can do right now is see what happens next and see if WG remains true to their words this time. I hope we don't have to set fires again.

It is such a shame for this to have happened with the company involved since the core gameplay of the game is still good and this game has potential to grow further.

 

[Andrewbassg]

 

And reverse!!

 

16 minutes ago, LittleWhiteMouse said:

This isn't about Gneisenau013 moving over to World of Tanks.
He's not working for the company in any capacity anymore.  According to @Femennenly's tweets (they're friends), he's being thrown under the Yukon-flavoured bus.

 

5 minutes ago, LittleWhiteMouse said:

Confirmed a few posts back (though obviously not touching base on the reasoning).  I'm not touching the subject anymore.  My displeasure is voiced.

 

Well... LWM is LWM.

[Andrewbassg]

And they closed the Yukon thread.......

[Sunleader]

9 hours ago, Andrewbassg said:

 

And reverse!!

 

 

 

Well... LWM is LWM.

 

Well. That Line of handling is unfortunately logical from WGs side.

After all they Decided that the Error that happened was not that the Work of LWM was Ignored, But rather that someone asked LWM and Chobi to work with them in the First Place.

Which means that WG will Blame whoever actually got LWM on Board claiming that he would have required Permission before doing that and never got it.

 

Now. I do think that Story is Shaky of course. Because this kind of Project would certainly have some Oversight and Its hard to believe that they just took it as "Feedback" As someone would certainly have needed to Notice that the Work Produced is way beyond just Feedback. After all dont get me wrong. But the Scales between Feedback and actual Work towards the Project are different by factors of magnitude. Its not something that should go unnoticed to be honest.

But Ultimately its Impossible for any Outsiders to Verify the Truth. After all. WGs Track Record of how much attention they Pay to Feedback in the First Place isnt exactly a Positive one.

So I would not exclude the Option that they really tought it was Feedback because nobody of the Team ever even made the Effort of actually working through all of it.

Which would also Explain how despite their "Feedback" it ended up entirely and utterly different from everything they wanted. After all. Even if we assume that the Team only considered it Feedback. That Feedback would have Run entirely Contrary to the Stuff they did. So if they paid it any Mind they would have made Changes to reflect that which they clearly did not.

 

 

Well. TLDR.

In Hindsight this was likely the Expectable Result considering WGs Earlier Statement of "Inducing Unwarranted Hope of Involvement and then Failing to Deliver on that"

Ultimately WG will go with this Story that it was all due to an Independent Decision of an Employee which caused all of this by himself without Authorization from the higher Ups.

 

 

[Andrewbassg]

39 minutes ago, Sunleader said:

 

Well. That Line of handling is unfortunately logical from WGs side.

After all they Decided that the Error that happened was not that the Work of LWM was Ignored, But rather that someone asked LWM and Chobi to work with them in the First Place.

Which means that WG will Blame whoever actually got LWM on Board claiming that he would have required Permission before doing that and never got it.

 

Now. I do think that Story is Shaky of course. Because this kind of Project would certainly have some Oversight and Its hard to believe that they just took it as "Feedback" As someone would certainly have needed to Notice that the Work Produced is way beyond just Feedback. After all dont get me wrong. But the Scales between Feedback and actual Work towards the Project are different by factors of magnitude. Its not something that should go unnoticed to be honest.

But Ultimately its Impossible for any Outsiders to Verify the Truth. After all. WGs Track Record of how much attention they Pay to Feedback in the First Place isnt exactly a Positive one.

So I would not exclude the Option that they really tought it was Feedback because nobody of the Team ever even made the Effort of actually working through all of it.

Which would also Explain how despite their "Feedback" it ended up entirely and utterly different from everything they wanted. After all. Even if we assume that the Team only considered it Feedback. That Feedback would have Run entirely Contrary to the Stuff they did. So if they paid it any Mind they would have made Changes to reflect that which they clearly did not.

 

 

Well. TLDR.

In Hindsight this was likely the Expectable Result considering WGs Earlier Statement of "Inducing Unwarranted Hope of Involvement and then Failing to Deliver on that"

Ultimately WG will go with this Story that it was all due to an Independent Decision of an Employee which caused all of this by himself without Authorization from the higher Ups.

 

 

Tbh... a company is a company and can absolutely do company things. But...sadly, this latest debacle underlines once more how they look at us, players of this game and in extension, to the community, both as a concept and as an entity.

I was cautiously optimistic about their statement. Sorry, not anymore.

[VerbotenCandy]

The drop rates could be published. After all, they're simply existing data points somewhere in the games machinery.

 

To "plan to publish" these over the year smacks of an understanding, internal to WG, that publishing these now would show controversial things - regional variations, poor rates, etc - thus necessitating this delay delay rework. After all, WG has talked before about the differing regulations between regions.

 

It's a start, I guess. I've worked at bigger, substantially more complex businesses than WG, where we've had precious few of these issues - but largely because we wanted to do things the right way. The actions aren't hard; yhe culture and behaviours are. This is what you'll be tested on, WG, whether you actually want to change.

[Benser33]

On 9/7/2021 at 8:49 AM, Ghesthar said:

I understand that people who want to collect or be completionists exists... how much by the confluence of that with time pressure?

It's a good question whose answer probably varies by individual. WG already do make some older timed content available permanently out of season when they add old event containers into the armory, usually no less than a year after the event to complete older collections and such. But they typically contain more aesthetic rewards and less "tangible" exclusive content like ships. Up until now the amount of "exclusive" content has not been available at release but has rather been released and then become exclusive later, adding another layer of fear to obtain everything before you miss out on the next Thunderer/Smaland/Smolensk. Consider that for a ship that you can only obtain by gambling for it in the first place and you've got quite an undesirable model, which WG has not quite reached yet.

 

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I definitely think some of the specific sorts of grind (kills, torp hits, floods, fires, whatever) are so much less frustratingly ..., to some extent, I can see the 'appeal' (from wg's point of view) of grind rather than skill/random gated tasks.

This is all true. (And I also ended up quitting WoT because of that fire starting campaign mission to get the T-55A I think? Just because I would get so frustrated with the game. WoT is a great lesson in not using stat monitors and try harding vicious objectives repeatedly, it is tilt inducing.)

 

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But this is where the complaint, to me, needs to be really.. careful? specific? something: 'Pay to do faster' or 'pay to skip' are not unreasonable. If the grinds resembled the PR dockyard, or War Thunder, I would find 'pay to skip' quite grating. However, the grinds REALLY aren't bad. The majority of the 'skipping new tech tree' lines, at least to the point where tiers are regular and playable, is accomplished through the free part of launch events. As it is, though, deciding what the 'win' condition is for all monetization complaints (boxes, skipping, etc) has to be a balance: there will be monetization somewhere, and different people have different preferences. If the complaint appears to boil down to 'cease monetizing' it will be simply ignored - it kind of has to be. Some of this also may need to be internal: it frustrates me, but I accept that I can't get every 'free' resource going. I can't help but feel that as frustrating as it may be for them, someone with a different preference (completion, collection, whatever) may need to accept that they can't meet all their goals in line with their spending or time goals. I'm not sure that fully resolving this is possible.

 

The idea that the event overload is by design in that way (that there is so much to do you can't do it all so you pay to finish some of it) is interesting - I hadn't thought of that. It makes sense, though, and really is consistent with one of my primary complaints with dockyard/missions/etc: there are all these ways of playing, but if I want to actually 'make progress' on these missions, I'm limited to random or coops a lot of the time. The dockyard stuff is available in ranked, which is a nice change to me, but the grinds don't really 'align' with the format. Almost nothing is doable in clan battles, brawls, or any other events that come up.

It is true, the content cannot be designed so that all of it is freely obtainable within reasonable time by essentially everyone. But the monetisation is designed sort of like a scale. You can simplify a lot of it down to whether players have/want to invest more money or time. Time and money are obviously finite. WG presents a lot of their content along the (simplified) lines of "what you don't have the time to grind, you can buy". Sure, great, if you work 40+ hour weeks and have a family and a social life you probably wont find time to grind out a lot of content, but you might have the disposable income to just buy some of the stuff you want. Meanwhile other people who have more free time to play the game can earn by playing, and buy less.Theoretically, that serves the vast majority of the playerbase and is fair, particularly accepting the necessity that the game must be funded somehow. They can't and won't ever please everyone, but once the majority

 

But, of course, the game is F2P, it has to incentivise spending somewhere, and in addition to making premium time worth having and adding new ships that you can simply buy straight up, they also continue to add to the time:cost model they have created. Don't have time for the dockyard missions? Buy some stages. Won't have time to grind new tech trees? Skip some progress with early access? Need more income? Try premium or some premium ships. This would all be reasonable and fine, but every player individually has their own scale of time:cost where on one hand they have the content they have the time for and the content they would have to buy if they wanted. The time side already accounts for real life commitments and non-buyable stuff like ranked (which was recently reworked to be an grind of incredible frequency) and clan wars, so the other side of the scale has everything that can't be done with time and must be bought.

 

What WG needs to do is reasses the way that they weigh this scale, because even though I've implemented things in ways that theoretically serve the majority of the playerbase by offering various options the specifics of how they arrange events and time requirements and costs puts almost everyone in the same boat of having to spend a lot if they want to achieve and progress they way they want. While monetising the game is to be expected, and methods employed can be reasonable and fair, WG seem to strategise around scaling everything up over time. Where once we had "buy what you can't grind" we now have "multiple continuous grinds everything and buy something too", which is the aggressiveness.

 

So we end up with a lot of these things that can be considered reasonable and fair, they offer a variety of options for people with differing degrees of free time/disposable income (does gambling count? If you have a small chance to win a missouri from the 3 bundles you can afford is that being inclusive to those with limited budgets? Or is it predatory?). And then unrelentingly throw them at the community with increasingly greater price tags and and/or increasingly less generous rewards. A lot of the community would appreciate it if they just toned it down, they have the capacity to make things more comfortable for a broad spectrum of the community but they instead choose overburden players in some attempt to see if they can milk every last penny and second that people consider "efficient" to give, rather than creating an environment where people give even more of their money and time just because they enjoy the game and don't feel pressured to feared into doing so.

 

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Out of order, but as I think I've mentioned before (maybe to someone else) I think this may actually be backward. I think the 'loud' element of the player base constantly pushing back in not necessarily reasonable ways, threatening to spend no money if design change x goes through, etc. has pushed WG to target the non-forum/reddit/CC-engaging (majority, frankly) population of big spenders: the wide base of low to moderate spenders doesn't really exist, and in this way, dockyards are probably a huge win - some monetization from a much broader base. This is, as I've said before, a bit chicken/egg - if there are products at a low to moderate price that a wider base of players sees as 'good value' they will become paying players. If there aren't, they won't. However, if the wider base refuses to engage with low-cost 'value' offerings, we'll just get more £100 anime tie in ships instead. 

 

The non-whales are the product that WG sells to the whales - every ad references player numbers, if people want to know if something is 'dead' or not they look at steam charts. People who are loudly refusing to spend any money ever because WG is greedy force the behaviour they complain about, it doesn't mitigate it - they have already removed themselves from the pool of customers, and placed themselves in the pool of product. Their complaints, unless the complaints translate into not playing, have no value at all from a product perspective.

This was not really what I meant, because it was not about spending, those were just example demographics. My point is, you can not argue that another part of the community being treated unfairly is not your concern because you simply do not participate in what it is they are concerned about. I personally have no interest in operations whatsoever, shooting at bots doesn't interest me at all. But if people complain that operations are not being developed, are just being run into the ground, that WG haven't kept their promises over that, that should concern me. We're part of the same community and it's the same entity that will decide how the aspects of the game we do participate in develop over time.

 

Because we're part of the same community, the way WG treats the players that play operations or the CCs or the ranked fanatics of the try hard competitive players or the every day guy that spends loads of money or the poor student who plays for free on mobile internet is also the way WG would treat me if I was any of those categories, or how they may treat us in the future. Non-participation doesn't exempt you from that. Saying "just dont take part" in their monetisation is fine, but when the monetised population is monetised aggressively they will also cease to play altogether. And then WG will figure out how to monetise you instead, until you can't enjoy the game without paying. At this rate they will repeat this until they have driven everyone except the stupid and ignorant away and at that point the game will be dead regardless of what player count says.

 

This is not to say that there is no truth to your response. I think a respectable percentage of the population would be happy with less concessions than many of the most extreme demands. But I'm not sure I follow with the logic of free players being a product WG benefits from, they incur a service cost like everyone else, their data must be stored and their games must be hosted. WG relies on far more than steam chart numbers (which only represents a fraction of the playerbase anyway) and their existing playerbase is less concerned with how well the game charts on steam and more with the current state of the game. Those who actively play yet loudly complain and deliver their "feedback" and demands serve only to reveal a somewhat long standing reputation WG has come to deserve, albeit if in a less helpful way. That outwardly projected reputation of the game developer can be equally as telling as steam charts on whether a game is worth playing, considering a portion of the audience finds their way here through word of mouth or reads reviews and reddit before trying for themselves. Due to this, the product of unhappy players is not really a welcome outcome, their affect upon attracting new players is not "no value from a product perspective", it is negative.

 

Much of the "closed wallet" stance is not used just to deny WG money but to proliferate the perspective that WG listens to money over reason. It is not likely to strangle the revenue from the game, but it impacts on reputation, it portrays to WG and the audience the perspective many players have of them as a company, the way in which they conduct themselves and what they value. That if you don't pay you don't matter.

 

WG need to take care with how they proceed right now and for the forseeable future, they have pushed the boundaries more than once and lots of promising new developments have turned sour with time but their constant escalations have not been ignored, it would be wise of them to stop testing where the breaking point really lies lest they reach it. Through mistakes in communication, significant changes to the stances they've declared in the past, failures to meet expectations, WG have done a great job of undermining trust and confidence and when the way that events and new content are delivered appear to want to captialise even on that uncertainty and misinformation then it stops appearing like something accidental and rather like a long term and intentional (or at least desirable) strategy.

 

They should consider themselves fortunate that the playerbase is willing to make a stand and talk rather than simply abandon the game. That the players will appeal and rabble and protest rather than dismiss the game and community in its entirety. With some of their actions, like refunds in the face of mistakes and community connection like the CM presence and dev blogs and public tests and discord QnA sessions prove that WG is capable of doing the right things, the possibility exists, if only they would apply that to the greater scheme of things.

[Ghesthar]

2 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

...obtain everything before you miss out on the next Thunderer/Smaland/Smolensk. Consider that for a ship that you can only obtain by gambling for it in the first place and you've got quite an undesirable model, which WG has not quite reached yet.

I guess so. At the same time, they've made the decision to not heavily nerf 'op' or excessively popular ships, and instead restrict access to them. I don't think this is NECESSARILY wrong, though maybe the state of tier 6 and 7-limited CBs, Brawls, and Ranked should call that into question a bit.

 

I guess there is a balancing act here between nerfing something someone spent time/money on and risking that backlash (which seems to be quite severe as well) or remove it from sale. I think this is a place where there is no single 'correct' answer.

 

2 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

What WG needs to do is reasses the way that they weigh this scale, because even though I've implemented things in ways that theoretically serve the majority of the playerbase by offering various options the specifics of how they arrange events and time requirements and costs puts almost everyone in the same boat of having to spend a lot if they want to achieve and progress they way they want. While monetising the game is to be expected, and methods employed can be reasonable and fair, WG seem to strategise around scaling everything up over time. Where once we had "buy what you can't grind" we now have "multiple continuous grinds everything and buy something too", which is the aggressiveness.

Could be. The 'monetisation WILL exist somewhere' point is part of why I object strenuously to 'ban lootboxes outright' arguments - the monetisation will come back somewhere, and I'm not sure I'd like it to be 'made up' through making normal grinds or the game economy more painful.

 

I'm not sure I agree with terming it aggressive - in their defence, a lot of missions and things CAN be done simultaneously, and most things do 'just happen' in the background. I do have some issues with the class or nation-specific substantial grinds, but it is entirely possible that other people have no problem with those missions and some problem with others. I guess I just don't feel very 'milked' - I participate in every event to a greater or lesser degree (I get most of the 'free stuff' from most of the release events, mostly depending on the ships) and the places where I participate less than I would like are places where time is the only factor - CBs, Ranked, and Dailies when I can't really be bothered.

 

The events that require payment seem, to me, like a dockyard every few months, which I either participate in or not depending on my enthusiasm at the time and the ship. So, maybe this is an engagement style thing, and if you really want to 'collect everything' you'll feel milked. It almost seems to me like the complaint is that there are too many monetization streams/options rather than 'multiple continuous grinds and buy something too' - like, it feels like some people are somehow 'stressed' due to weird tie-in monetizations (Kong/Godzilla, ARP stuff, whatever) which are.. I don't know. Crap? But they exist, so do people want to 'collect' those too, simply because they exist, and then feel pressured?

 

I know that this is somewhat personal, but it just goes back to my feeling of 'just don't buy it, then' and the lack of compulsion - I see the argument that there is a lack of value, and I agree with it, but the solution to that is not buying it, isn't it? I can understand the DESIRE to buy it, but I can't help but default back to 'just don't do it'

 

2 hours ago, Astolfo_Is_My_Waifu said:

Because we're part of the same community, the way WG treats the players that play operations or the CCs or the ranked fanatics of the try hard competitive players or the every day guy that spends loads of money or the poor student who plays for free on mobile internet is also the way WG would treat me if I was any of those categories, or how they may treat us in the future. Non-participation doesn't exempt you from that. Saying "just dont take part" in their monetisation is fine, but when the monetised population is monetised aggressively they will also cease to play altogether. And then WG will figure out how to monetise you instead, until you can't enjoy the game without paying. At this rate they will repeat this until they have driven everyone except the stupid and ignorant away and at that point the game will be dead regardless of what player count says.

So, last part and this come down to monetization 'aggression' as the problem. But, as above, what is aggression?

 

So, I don't THINK the mere existence of premium ships is aggression? Like, the only way you can get them is through paying, but that is more or less okay as long as they aren't power creep objects, right?

 

I don't think the weird overpriced tie-in events (as above, Kong, ARP, etc) are aggressive - they are comically overpriced niche cosmetics, and I can see the 'they are comically overpriced' complaint from someone who might want them, but I don't think price-point complaints really constitute aggression, at least not without some measurable gameplay benefit?

 

I can see the compulsion/aggression feeling in time-restricted or gamble-only ships, but there aren't a lot of these, and they are receiving enough pushback that they hopefully won't be too common.

 

I have a hard time with the regular 'event' containers, because the tangible benefit is so low? I guess the 'collecting' element comes up with camos? 

 

The most 'aggressive' events SHOULD be dockyard - they are a confluence of needing to pay, time restrictions, and grind requirement - and yet these seem like the best value proposition, and don't feel bad to me at all..

 

Is it the number of simultaneous options? There is a lot of choice if one wants to pay, but with the exception of individuals who want ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, I'm not really sure why anyone would feel excessively monetized?

 

I'm clearly missing 'something', but what?

[Ashmodiel]

23 hours ago, Aragathor said:

Guys, stop pouring gasoline over the fire. Seriously.

 

C'mon, we know this guy from an excellent PR performance two years ago:

 

https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/207137-ceo-of-lesta-comments-on-pr-complaints/

 

Flamu just posted this vid.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOA8vDDIH8s