I want to thank you all for your great ideas and posts. This thread has exceeded my expectations by far with the amount of useful and constructive posts, and has shown me that the STG community is one of the most resilient gaming communities out there. We are a dedicated group of players who are speaking up because we clearly care about the direction of this game that we play. Given that, I am rather confused as to why after over 100 posts, 4k views, the only support interaction involved the deletion of a few key posts (which is ironic because part of this post was about the excessive censorship on forums), and the statement that this PvE boosting issue (which is like 1/5th what the thread is about) has been "forwarded to developers" whatever that means. I'm going to give you my opinion on STG, and the game as a whole so bear with me as I zoom out a little...
In the professional world, since we are STG's clients, they should be taking our wants and needs (since they do not have this insight into what we actually desire), and analyzing them to determine which of these would require the least effort and provide the most value to the community and ultimately increase their plat sales. I realize that STG is a small business and I admire them for doing all that they've done, and growing into quite a successful company through their impressive mobile games. However, as companies grow, they must evolve. The companies that succeed in the mobile application sector do so because their single app goes viral. Quality over quantity is the key to becoming profitable. Look at Clash of Clans, Candy Crush, Angry Birds. Etc. I honestly think that STG has a gold mine here, and that their lack of focus on this game has lead to what is today.
Runescape was a rudimentary game when it first came out. The graphics were SO bad. It was 2D, and the ground was made up of squares... it literally looked like MineCraft. But, as they saw it become profitable, it grew and grew and (I haven't been on in years) became one of the most profitable internet games of the 2000s. Arcane Legends literally has the potential to do just this, and it's really sad to see that they are instead focusing on creating other games (which has yet to be confirmed, but based on their history it is probably the case). What STG doesn't realize is that by fixing these fundamental issues they will improve the game on a grander scale which will set them up for growth in the future. Rather they are just adding layers onto an already tipping game which will ultimately end in a large portion of the player base quitting. Maybe that is their goal to have everyone migrate to a new game. I can go on and on as you can probably tell, but my opinions come down to this. I love this game, and I've had A LOT of fun in PvP, and recently in PvE and would love to continue playing if there is more content. However, the fact that we as a community have to ask, beg, and plead for fundamental issues of the game to be fixed is laughable. If we don't speak up, nothing is fixed. I can cite dozens of examples of things that were ruining the game, that took months to get fixed but I wont because that will cause another thread.
As far as this specific thread goes, I really hope that these things actually get taken seriously. So many amazingly simple but impactful suggestions have been announced. They should be thanking us for helping them with a game that we do not profit from. We are volunteering our time to speak up and help them make more money off of us, yet there is no acknowledgement of that. Maybe our expectations are too high... who knows.
I apologize for the long and disorganized post but this will be my last one of this thread until a moderator addresses something.
Thanks and remember to keep this constructive (although my post wasn't =P)
Last edited by raw; 02-19-2015 at 11:31 AM.
Actualy is not disorganized at all and you mentioned a key aspect on making your business grow: customer loyalty.
Lets be real here, with way things are in AL right now, how Devs/Mods wont give an objective answer on things like class balance, skill system revamp, LB changes, would you play (and pay) another of their games?
I know I wouldnt.
I already stated in some other post that all this "this year we want to be close to the community" is bs. I dont realy care that the event is delayed, but I care WHY its delayed. What fixes takes so long to be implemented? Be more transparent on your communications. Remiem does a huge weekly post that says nothing, is always "Its a big change and we gonna take our time in it".
zzzz...I'm sorry to make a non constructive post, but as a customer (paying one on my case) it's sad to see the lack of effort put on this game.
As far as keeping everything constructive,I personally know this gets harder and harder as time passes with nothing but more misinformation being processed and it just gets harder and harder to simply enjoy yourself. It's quite difficult to make money now and the game has shifted focus from farming to derping events for pets and vanities. Ffs the Tour Of Arlor was implemented as "something for the community to do" in between events and expansion... even this now has ppl crying because they chose not to participate until they found there a vanity. I used to buy and spend plat, used to make far more money than I would spend. Now it's the polar opposite. I was so proud of myself for making it through that ridiculously long plat sale without popping...
Constructive comments only get you so far and these forums have proven to be a place where common sense goes to die.
CO-GM <THE COLLECTIVE>
First, I want to thank you, raw, for creating this post. And to everyone who responded for being civil and constructive in this thread. It's almost 130 replies deep and full of really valuable information and suggestions. I understand that the primary frustration here is that it sometimes takes quite a while for us to change or fix large scale issues in Arcane Legends. This is completely understandable. From a player perspective, "What are you guys twiddling your thumbs on over there?" Right?
Thanks to your feedback, we understood that there were some holes in how we were communicating with our community and determining the core issues that you all care about most. This is where myself and Productor have put our heads together to 1) Communicate more clearly about where our time and attention is going here in the studio and 2) Better identifying key community concerns and doing our best to help resolve them.
Admittedly, in the past, new content, events, etc. often took precedence over game fixes. This year, we’ve changed our focus to better balance our attention to bug fixes and new content! Now, part of our team is focused on bug fixes and resolving existing issues and the other part is focused on new content and updates, both of which are required to keep a game alive. Now, the important thing to understand is that our team is still very small. I know we mention that a lot, but it is important in understanding our timelines. What this means is that sometimes big fixes can take a lot of time. Often it's not just an issue of "There's a problem. Fix it. Done." It required research: "What do we need to do that will solve this problem?" Code: "How do we develop what needs to go into the game to resolve this issue." Design: "How will this impact the game over all? How does it ripple out to effect other game aspects?" QA: "Does it work? Is there anything that doesn't work as intended?"
As the community manager I think, "This is a HUGE deal in the community! It should be fixed today!" When, in reality, the responsible way for us to handle it is to give it the time it needs to get done and get done right. That does mean that sometimes the weekly updates will only be able to say "We are working on it..." and not "It's done." That is not a brush off, it's the honest truth. Sometimes we will say we are working on it for months...because it takes months. Especially in tackling these things that effect the game at its very core, such as leaderboards, skill system, etc. The choices that we make everyday effect thousands and thousands of players. We cannot and should not take them lightly.
Another post mentioned us relying heavily on the forums to communicate with our players. The forums are where discussions happen freely and easily, and are the best way to get a broad pulse on community thoughts and opinions. I visit the game and play frequently in my spare time, but I can only collect so many opinions in a 25-player zone and only experience a small part of the player experience when playing on my alt. The things I experience in the game won't be the same as someone with a different class, a different focus (I like farming, but not merching, running for LB's and PvP), or a different guild. That's where the forums come in. Everyone can speak their mind and give varying perspectives all in one place. The forums aren’t simply convenient – they’re the best way to have these important and sometimes too-lengthy-for-in-game conversations!
I hope that you will all continue to keep the conversation going. I will always be working to communicate better both with you and with the team to get your most pressing issues resolved. As raw said, "the STG community is one of the most resilient gaming communities out there. We are a dedicated group of players who are speaking up because we clearly care about the direction of this game that we play. It's true and it's why I want to do my very best to make that voice heard within the company. One of the great benefits of being a small company is that we have the opportunity to keep a very close relationship with our players, and we certainly plan on working to be better at that every single day.
Avaree, BaronB, GoodSyntax, Maarkus, raw
I love STS games, I really do. But I can't invest more money because on other games (not STG's) i'm able to gain more stuff in little time (in 2 months i've capped with little money on other games). It took over 2 1/2 years to muster up the will power to open a locked chest and for a chance at the best items..i'm sorry but no. I love to earn my items, and thats how I feel about these games. As for botting and other issues I can see why its done....you spend so much time on a game and it feels like you are going nowhere. I've spent more money on Mythic pets than I have on other aspects of AL...and now even those are outdated never to be upgraded to how AL is running today.
Lovely thread Raw, much blessings to you my friend hopefully sometime soon I can play again like I did long ago.
PL-Ghosts | SL-DL-AL- Ghost | SL-DL-AL-Octavos
Again, ask Cara what can/can't be done with the LB.
1. Is it possible to lay in a point-based system attached to each player based on the difficulty of the mobs they are killing?
2. Are seasonal leader boards going to happen?
3. Can you lay in any sort of botting-tracker so it's not up to the players to witch hunt each other?
Remiem, i have a question. Why isn't paying for platinum worth it? When i buy currency in a game i expect something good out of it....You would expect this because of all the locked crate threads saying i wasted 100 dollars for nothing. That's excatly how i feel, it should be worth to pay money for platinum in this game, not paying for a chance to waste my money on nothing in game. Why i say this? Locked crates are currently the only thing worth using plat for, if you buy 1000 platinum or 2000, you can get like 5m gold from ankhs. Compare 5m gold to the gear needed for endgame PVE and PVP. The platinum has to be worth paying for, i was watching this other companys stream. They said *we dont want to make you feel like you regretted spending your money on this game*. The luck is just too much in this game, the only way to compete at endgame with the best gear (over 100m) you need to open locked crates and when you do open them you have a chance at getting nothing. Please try and fix this, i want it be worth to buy platinum now a days, that explains the threads saying *oh i wasted 100 dollars and got nothing*.
Edit: Sorry for not being on topic, i just wanted to ask remiem something with information.
Last edited by Burstnuke; 02-19-2015 at 06:59 PM.
This is a very good question. The gambling aspect is all too frustrating. I don't gamble IRL and I never should have tried here. I don't think I've spent much at all considering what I've heard some of my friends have invested but let's face it, using an IG currency that's only good for gambling is only widening the gap frustrating more players and furthering the decline of the economy.
CO-GM <THE COLLECTIVE>
We already get 0 kills for most maps. It would be nice to get rewarded for the efforts elites take. I still think the pve board should be for elite kills, or else an elite kill board should be added, and have that one be used for top player board calculations.
Seasonal leaderboards would be a massive improvement to the game and community both.
Any automated scanning process can be worked around by the tech-savvy. If STS wants to clean up the problems discussed in this thread, it is going to take actual staff monitoring gameplay and enforcing the ToS.
Personaly, for me to be more optimistic with game changes/rebalances/fixes I would just need a small thing from you guys: COMMITMENT.
As a customer, it makes a huge diference reading: "This is in development process and will be fixed" or even something more towards "We've finished a roadmap on how to fix this issue, we will be starting to develop now".
I agree with Candy on the calendar thing, would show to the community how commited you guys are and for us would be good to have more transparent communication and goals.
Delays happen, as I already told, I have some experience on the subject, but lets face it, it's way easier to have the customer by your side if you set a date and have a clear reason on why you failed than if you dont set a date and all we get is "an unforseen problem".
So, I will ask again, as so many people already ask:
1. Is it possible to lay in a point-based system attached to each player based on the difficulty of the mobs they are killing?
2. Are seasonal leader boards going to happen?
3. Can you lay in any sort of botting-tracker so it's not up to the players to witch hunt each other?
4. Can we expect a Skill Revamp or it will be like waiting for 30 of february?
Save the movement logs in a different DB (so that you wont bring server down, like happens with test server ) and have some process making reports on how similar they are. Not so hard imho to detect macro boting.
Last edited by Seoratrek; 02-22-2015 at 03:01 PM. Reason: less drama
Well...after what all I've read...this is interesting. Some things I didn't know...Anyway, I think we need to start over. Clear the kills LB. This is getting annoying, and this is getting nowhere. You want to be a on LB again, just get more kills. This LB is destroying us all, making us do bad things. There isn't even a prize, just a dumb banner, so I think we need to stop crying over it. Let's just have a macro detector and restart the kills LB. Problem solved.
I had the rare pleasure to meet and get to know Ravager as a close friend in this game. He is the silent giant of AL and deserves more than anyone to stand on top of the Overall Leaderboard. He is incredibly kind and fascinating, and has absolutelt earned everything he has achieved in this game. And the fact he has always remained neutral with Pheonix and never given in to warring guilds like even I have just adds to his good character IMO.
I apologize to all the 'thinking caps' here who have been tossing out so many positive ideas here for the recent direction this largely constructive thread has been forced towards due to whatever imagined personal grievances a player may have with me. Hopefully today will find everyone in a better state of mind so that we may get back to discussing the various proposed plans of attacking the issues at hand for a brighter future.
Long live Arcane Legends and the friendships we have forged here!!
Thank you
Last edited by Seoratrek; 02-22-2015 at 03:15 PM. Reason: less drama
I wonder if these same problems happened in pocket legends
Oo don't get me wrong - I don't consider it owning up to anything. From the get go, I was very clear about my purpose and didn't lie, so my conscience is clear. I was told to stop talking about it and I guess they were getting enough mail to tell me to stop friends writing in in support. People knew what I was doing. Just coz a few didn't accept the reality of it doesn't change things. Seems easy enough a logic to follow. I'm just here to push along a related cause, not to seek sympathy or acceptance. Maybe we just belong in different worlds - we all naturally go back to the one we're tailored for. At any rate it was good to experience how people I wouldn't normally meet are, warts and all, when they're not putting pressure on themselves to be nice face to face. Ty for everything, I appreciate the good and bad, and hope good comes out of ur endeavours.
Last edited by Origin; 02-22-2015 at 01:39 PM.
Trash the leaderboards. It's worth nothing lol.
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