How to Deal With Complaints and Critisism, The Right Way
Ricard Daystrom
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Lately, the DB Forum administrators, like @Shan are shutting down threads not on basis of content (Ex.the Mirror Janeway thread, now in the holodeck subforum) but on the basis of complaints (Ex. The Really,REALLY thread) and probably this thread somewhere down the line.
It is childish to dismiss criticism by stopping threads in their tracks. It is understandable if it gets out of hand, but most of the time it is not. I respect DB, but they need to acknowledge that criticism can be dealt with in better ways, like actually taking these criticisms to heart and acknowledging that this is something wrong and it need to be solved.
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It is childish to dismiss criticism by stopping threads in their tracks. It is understandable if it gets out of hand, but most of the time it is not. I respect DB, but they need to acknowledge that criticism can be dealt with in better ways, like actually taking these criticisms to heart and acknowledging that this is something wrong and it need to be solved.
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Proud Member of Everlong and avid Star Trek Fan
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Comments
I’m wondering how often this trend has happened before? Does it happen every time there are large numbers of people upset and I’ve just happened to be reading the forums much at that time?
We got this response from at @Shan
When players get upset about things (Ex. The Faction fiasco of "The Galactic Series"), they make threads.
Usually theyes are sit down on the basis of "bashing", when 90% of the time, that is not the case
So from what you’ve seen, the moderating and shutting threads down is becoming more common?
I’ve been playing for over 2 years, checking in and out of the forums sporadically and it would be easy for me to miss this sort of moderation. I’ve generally seen one or two threads closed, occasionally if they really go far off track but I’ve not seen it like this before.
Ah yeah, I’m still bitter about that whole thing as well.
Probably why on this issue I’m extra annoyed, its been bottling up again.
I don’t think it does it helps to close threads and complaints, they need to be addressed.
If DB does not want to field large numbers of complaints about major screwups, then DB needs to stop having a near-continuous flow of major screwups.
I agree but your being a meany head so shan will shut you down ,you big bully ,should not pick on poor wittle DB
I can’t speak for the OP, but would like to comment.
Suitable compensation is very difficult in situations like this, because there are 2 or 3 ways players could have responded once falling prey to the ‘miscommunications’.
In my opinion, once DB are made aware of what I would class as a major issue, they don’t tend to think proactively. It may have proven cheaper (in terms of compensation) for DB to have pulled the plug on this event 30 minutes in, than have to sift through what I’m sure will become ‘4+ weeks of CS delays’. But they don’t appear to have any ability to consider beyond the raw $/per event day stats they see on their snazzy freemium-game-profit-meter app on their iPads while lying at the pool side sunbathing (at least that’s how I imagine it).
It would also have done wonders for reputation to have pulled the event because they ‘really aren’t happy with the issues and want to get it right’. That sort of customer service pays off in the long run.
So, while many players are left angry and feeling betrayed for the millionth time, some of those players will probably be seeking refunds for 3, 4 or even 5 figures from Apple. It feels that DB are even blind to these cash statistics. This can be double upsetting for long term players, because everything is (subjectively!) Extremely, EXTREMELY expensive in this game (£100 for 2 x 1/5 gold crew?????) to a large portion of us.
Looked at purely in a vacuum, from the context of this event, I fail to see how it's even close to a major issue warranting suspending the event.
I got a warning from Shan for "not being civil" and another thread has been closed with this statement from @SporeJumpDiscoRipper
Now my voice is being muffled by DB
No more Event Ideas until March 29th
I'm soooo happy
And it forms greater frustration to me (and maybe others) that some people don’t see the reasons why these issues are such a huge problem.
I’m not going to go into the maths, but hope you can appreciate the logic and effort that goes into the preparation for events sometimes.
- I have spent hours carefully upgrading bonus crew, taking into account event faction shuttle mission items, 2x variants, replicator uses and costs.
- I have been careful to save merits to buy extra transmissions, reducing my chances of pulling a caretaker in the gauntlet.
- I have tried to spend dilithium (aka closest to real cash) in an efficient way to earn credits to quickly level featured crew and buy shuttle boosts slowly over 3-4+ weeks.
- I have been extra diligent and efficient with AM top ups in order to stock up on chrons from Voyages.
- all of this in order to ensure I have the best chance of scoring under 1000 for a 1/5* gold crew member for my collection. Or, if luck is in my favour, a chance at sub 25 for 2/5*.
All of this effort and consideration is thrown out of the window when we get issues like today’s, because now I have no idea what forms of group compensation might benefit who and how.
For some context, I believe there's been exactly one time an event was suspended. It was before my time, but my understanding is that the event was virtually unplayable.
I'd say the last paragraph is an exaggeration. Most of that effort and preparation is unaffected by there being only one faction.
As far as event mistakes go, there have been much worse that didn't result in a suspension. The 10k VP for failed missions comes immediately to mind.
I don’t agree;
- I am a European player, and if I don’t get to 3-4K VP (high value) missions within 6 or 7 hours of he event start, then I am at a disadvantage when sending out my first round of 9hr shuttles. That’s a whole bunch of lost opportunity. This problem was mitigated using kick start strategies, which are now no longer assured.
- If I was to get close to sub-25 rank, where the rewards suddenly get a lot better, extracting the most event points from the culmination of my preparation and a level playing field becomes even more important. It could transpire that I’m in the unlucky group that hesitated waiting for a hotfix, or opposite, DB could have hot fixed and I’d have been on 4K missions 20hrs earlier (remember, this is all happening in the evening for me).
- what if the compensation (if offered) is an extra event Rom and I already have him immortalised? Suddenly x number of players have an extra advantage that I couldn’t have planned for.
Etc etc. There are probably many more reasons, but essentially as soon as it ceases to be a level playing field, all my time and money preparing has been worthless.
Just when DB messes up and we start complaining
That was a joke...I didn't expect a real response from anyone.
There was totally nothing wrong with that meme image. It was fracking funny.
Not really. I think part of the problem is that there are too many threads for them to moderate right now. There are more users than moderators, and the users have a lot of pitchforks and torches memes and gifs.
In the past, most of the threads I’ve seen closed were ones where people were actively being malicious to each other, and did not stop after a warning. Usually, it’s precipitated by a lot of flags on comments.
But when there are errors, and too many threads pop up, they will close some.
The Engineering Room is really where threads about in-game issues belong, and there is an appropriate thread in there that has not been closed.
In The Bridge (where this thread is), there is a thread dedicated to the event.
There’s a lot of insults and chocolate cronuting going around. Marinated tofu, sometimes, too.
Obviously most, if not all of us, do not know how this game is coded. So maybe they planned on doing a 3 faction event, so it should be 6 shuttle missions per faction that can be opened at one time. But then somebody decided to change it to 1 faction. Maybe it was something they overlooked", but since with a single faction you can open double the amount of multi-faction events. It was "stuck" in multi-faction mode so that is why we can only open 12.
I am not making any excuses for DB. Just trying to give some perspective how a single change up can become a major screw up quickly.
I have a suspicion that a big part of it is that this is a hybrid event. The first since they made the switch to 6 missions per faction, no less.
It would seem likely that we will see the Klingons and Romulans in Phase 2.
They know we are upset, but also made it clear they dont care, shan state that as this was the plan all along that they would not be compensation inless send a ticket in for rom and kilgon tokens only
Had we gone more than a couple events without making this kind of error, folks would be more forgiving.
Honestly, it ain't this instance, its all the instances leading up to this coming to a head with this one that has folks up in arms.