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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 13:46:01 GMT -5
Lets start off with some truth: our relationship has been on the rocks for a long time now. To be frank a good number of the players feel like they are being ignored, and that your being exploitive. We have had meetings, we have yelled, we have boycotted and yet your hell bent on staying the course that your on.
This is a mistake.
You are a company that once called itself “little Zynga” - they had faith that their marketing efforts would always be able to replenish the customers that they burnt out, burnt through. The problem is that customer acquisition without retention isn’t a way to build a sustainable business, or brand. More importantly the pool of players in the “giant robots” genre isn’t nearly as deep as you might think. Those that enjoy the genre most are fickle, and will be loyal to a fault.
These are the people who can talk about war robots in the same breath as battle tech, mech warrior and Armored core. These are the players who are abandoning your game - the love is gone because the trust is gone.
I don’t know if the choice to isolate yourself from your customers was a willful one - but from the outside looking in it sure looks like you ignore us intentionally. You only seem to show your face in public when people praise you on the few social media platforms that you participate in. We only get a direct response from you when you slip up and let us know that we don’t matter. The pattern is very apparent. You say “however simple human psychology fact - it is more likely for someone to go out there and complain than praise” and we get a player meeting. We protest and you say “how dare you”, and we then get “we hear you”. You slip up and tell us that tanking isn’t really tanking and then you give us a FORM to fill out -
Lets look back on that player meeting - we told you that you were making War Robots feel like a job. A year on you gave us paper work to fill out as an appeasement strategy.
Lets look at the pattern: You screw up, we complain, you say your going to address it and we buy into it. Or you give us half measures that you later take away. Fundamentally though you never really address the issues, things never really get better.
It took me a long time to figure out why. Not only do you not listen to us, you don’t really use your own game. If the level of play in your last live stream is any indication, you really should spend some quality time with your product. Again, much like Zynga you embraced being data driven but fell into the classic data driven trap because - "If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.” It wasn’t just the live stream that made this clear - it is a LOT of things.
The way you keep buffing molots screams “I never used them” because they weren’t really under powered 2 buffs back - your hell bent on turning the damage knob and you forgot that their big issue is ‘cycle time’. More Power.
Lets look at how players are ranked: More Power
Lets look at how clans are ranked: More Power
Lets look at why tanking is a problem: Power
Lets look at why people hate MM: Power imbalance
How is gold distributed post match: Power
Lets ask a champ why they don’t play KOTH: Because wining helps my league score, but not my activity, not my clan rank — it fails because everything else in your system is about power.
Lets look at how leagues work: You have a power sorting algorithm. You tried winner take all and it failed — and what your left with could find the fattest war robots player if you replaced damage with a scale.
But it isn’t the only issue. War robots used to be about choice - what to purchase, how to fit your bot, what league to play in. You went and took all of that away, you gave us components, and gambling, you made MM a crap shoot. In an impressive move you managed to turn GAME MODES into a lottery. It is as impressive as it is sad that you managed to turn something that might have been an enhancement into something that alienates your players. To quote Paps from the forums:
"Yeah, oddly enough...I tend to not play at all when I can't use my own time as I see fit.
If I wanted to play poker, but every time I went to the casino the only available game was roulette, I'd be just as likely to leave without spending anything as stay and waste my time and/or money doing something I have minimal interest in. Thanks but no thanks."
This was an open letter, and to the players as well.
We need to get behind a simple unified message - one that every one can pick up and get behind, one that is (for a change) demanding a positive change rather than complaining about what has passed. Skill and choice not power and chance. This isn’t about your pet issue - it is about ALL the systemic issues.
Skill and choice… it is a dead simple message that every blogger and youtube who cares about the game, can repeat, and amplify. Those that don’t want to beat the drum of skill and choice, well stop reading, unsubscribe and tell them WHY.
If you are producing a blog or War Robots videos then you clearly have enough passion to invest in the game, maybe you even love it at some level. Well if you don’t get up and fight FOR it then it will die - maybe not tomorrow but sooner than you think - Skill and Choice is a drum you can beat, it is a positive message you can send.
Just keep repeating the message Skill and Choice not Power and Chance till the fixes are LIVE.
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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 13:46:34 GMT -5
Danny Linguini this is your fault for complementing me. To everyone else, I may publish this elsewhere if it is received well here.
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Post by Loganspawn on Mar 28, 2018 13:53:17 GMT -5
Danny Linguini this is your fault for complementing me. To everyone else, I may publish this elsewhere if it is received well here. Rock on man!
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Post by Danny Linguini on Mar 28, 2018 14:19:55 GMT -5
Danny Linguini this is your fault for complementing me. To everyone else, I may publish this elsewhere if it is received well here. I'm not so sure I'd equate my agreeing with you to a compliment.... But that pretty well sums it all up, especially skill and choice over power and chance -- nutshell.
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Post by ᥣᵃᵛᵃʲᵃᵛᵃ on Mar 28, 2018 14:25:04 GMT -5
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Post by stokr on Mar 28, 2018 14:28:40 GMT -5
I couldn't make it through it...the choir will like it though.
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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 14:33:17 GMT -5
I couldn't make it through it...the choir will like it though. Im guessing that you either need to be MORE or LESS stoned to enjoy it - correct that situation and give it another go
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Post by fizbanrapper on Mar 28, 2018 14:35:05 GMT -5
Well said!
Pix is blatantly instructing us not to trust them by rigging the games of chance and by manipulating progress meters.
The latest one with the dice is likely even illegal in one or more countries. There's a very strong implication that each roll has a 1/6 chance of landing on the better choices. I haven't landed on one yet, even though I've rolled at least once in every game from the beginning. That's statistically impossible.
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Post by Loganspawn on Mar 28, 2018 14:41:48 GMT -5
I couldn't make it through it...the choir will like it though. Im guessing that you either need to be MORE or LESS stoned to enjoy it - correct that situation and give it another go “Yeah? Well, you know, that's just uh like, your opinion man."
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Post by kukurukukuk on Mar 28, 2018 14:46:53 GMT -5
Danny Linguini this is your fault for complementing me. To everyone else, I may publish this elsewhere if it is received well here. You should definitely post it in more places.
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Post by ⓣⓡⓘⓒⓚⓨ48 on Mar 28, 2018 14:48:04 GMT -5
Bookmark... will read when I can
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Post by Destroyer on Mar 28, 2018 14:53:38 GMT -5
Pix only have 2 formulas power = money so they came up with MK2, make sure all the F2P can never get it more power = more money so they came up with new OP bots and weapons, make sure they can keep milking whales.
So all F2P players will get tired of getting 2 hit kill and quit, not a problem for Pix because they weren't paying anyways. The remaining players will be all whales shooting each other, richer whales will have better weapons, poorer whales will get tired of 2 hit kills and quit. This is where the state of the game is now.
Until there is one last whale standing, he is the king of all whales, the ultra whale, very illusive...feared by all other whales when he shows up in battlefield, oftentimes you'll check his hangars to see what Pix will release next. However, he is a lonely whale, often cannot join any clans because no one can match his hangar, cannot squad with anyone because he will take all the gold and silver and any other battle rewards.
One day, the ultra whale got tired of playing by himself, and quit. This is how War Robots ends.
If you don't believe me, last night an MK2 Specter with MK2 Ions took out my level 10 Bulgasari Shocktrain in 2 shots. I never got a shot at him.
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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 15:04:08 GMT -5
I haven't landed on one yet, even though I've rolled at least once in every game from the beginning. That's statistically impossible. Lets clear this up: 1. We haven't played the game enough to make that conclusion on our own. Your sample size is too small. 2. inspirace did make a poll about this: war-robots-forum.freeforums.net/thread/21654/result-free-rolling-dice-today Its sample size still isn't GREAT but it is large enough to say that these LOOK loaded (I'm not going to calculate a confidence interval, but we could) Really we should do a larger poll (in google forms) and publish it on fb/here/reddit when the next dice game goes live (as close to live as possible and thats a bad time zone for me but maybe I'll alarm clock it) - over 100 rolls would be good - and if we hit 1000 then we would have enough data (probably) to get to a high confidence level.
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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 15:05:31 GMT -5
Bookmark... will read when I can Yea... my "read later" folder has about 1200 items in it
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Post by RedRaider on Mar 28, 2018 15:05:51 GMT -5
Skill and Choice not Power and Chance
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Post by RedRaider on Mar 28, 2018 15:08:47 GMT -5
how about an email campaign to give them this loud and clear? short and sweet. Just email them "Skill and Choice not Power and Chance" and then direct them to this thread. what do you think?
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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 15:17:27 GMT -5
how about an email campaign to give them this loud and clear? short and sweet. Just email them "Skill and Choice not Power and Chance" and then direct them to this thread. what do you think? It would still fall on deaf ears - Simply put without the you tubers and bloggers any effort to get pix to listen will die. This is a simple, positive message - one that they can pick up and run with, one that they can each put their own spin on. I alone can't convince them that this is the message they should be putting out till the fixes for the issues are live. We (as in this forms members) are numerous enough to convince them. We don't have sway over pix, but we do have sway over content creators and with their backing we COLLECTIVELY have sway over pix.
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Post by fizbanrapper on Mar 28, 2018 15:18:29 GMT -5
I haven't landed on one yet, even though I've rolled at least once in every game from the beginning. That's statistically impossible. Lets clear this up: 1. We haven't played the game enough to make that conclusion on our own. Your sample size is too small. 2. inspirace did make a poll about this: war-robots-forum.freeforums.net/thread/21654/result-free-rolling-dice-today Its sample size still isn't GREAT but it is large enough to say that these LOOK loaded (I'm not going to calculate a confidence interval, but we could) Really we should do a larger poll (in google forms) and publish it on fb/here/reddit when the next dice game goes live (as close to live as possible and thats a bad time zone for me but maybe I'll alarm clock it) - over 100 rolls would be good - and if we hit 1000 then we would have enough data (probably) to get to a high confidence level. I should have said it is 'likely' to be statistically impossible, you're right. I don't have enough data to be certain. We all seem to be having an unusual amount of bad luck though, don't we?
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giraffeman
GI. Patton
Posts: 147
Karma: 89
Pilot name: GiraffeMan
Platform: Amazon
Clan: Iron Outlaws
Server Region: North America
Favorite robot: One i don't have
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Post by giraffeman on Mar 28, 2018 15:23:56 GMT -5
Well said! Pix is blatantly instructing us not to trust them by rigging the games of chance and by manipulating progress meters. The latest one with the dice is likely even illegal in one or more countries. There's a very strong implication that each roll has a 1/6 chance of landing on the better choices. I haven't landed on one yet, even though I've rolled at least once in every game from the beginning. That's statistically impossible. The progress meter thing is very deceptive. Once i figured that out, i swore i would never spend money on the game. But alas... I ended up spending one dollar on a 100 keys for the 500 any payment gold, because i forgot about the trickery of the progress bar. I know the keys are technically free if you grind it and you get free intangible stuff when using them, but it is still very unethical to trick people into spending money like that..... I will still play, but no more dollars for them.
relatively new... started playing around Xmas on the Amazon server.
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Post by HEATHEN HERETIC on Mar 28, 2018 15:41:49 GMT -5
Danny Linguini this is your fault for complementing me. To everyone else, I may publish this elsewhere if it is received well here. Well said and well written. It should be copy pasted by everyone who agrees in every media that PIXONIC uses. If you don't mind I'll keep the ball rolling once you have initiated it. Let me know. ?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2018 15:59:43 GMT -5
I would have gave a solid thumbs up, if they started listening three updates ago when I was stfo for unrelated reasons and still cared about the game. That time has passed. There's no fixing this without substantial changes, changes that likely won't come now that so many of the vets have left, and the majority of current players are new-heads that don't knownany better.
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Post by blueraider on Mar 28, 2018 16:07:30 GMT -5
Danny Linguini this is your fault for complementing me. To everyone else, I may publish this elsewhere if it is received well here. Well said and well written. It should be copy pasted by everyone who agrees in every media that PIXONIC uses. If you don't mind I'll keep the ball rolling once you have initiated it. Let me know. ? I'd like permission to copy and paste too ?
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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 16:46:45 GMT -5
Well said and well written. It should be copy pasted by everyone who agrees in every media that PIXONIC uses. If you don't mind I'll keep the ball rolling once you have initiated it. Let me know. ? I'd like permission to copy and paste too ? Have at it
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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 16:56:03 GMT -5
I would have gave a solid thumbs up, if they started listening three updates ago when I was stfo for unrelated reasons and still cared about the game. That time has passed. There's no fixing this without substantial changes, changes that likely won't come now that so many of the vets have left, and the majority of current players are new-heads that don't knownany better. Actually it isn't too late. It doesn't take a lot of people - it only takes a small focused group. The template is there - Get the content producers to pick up this message, and NOT put it down till there is change - because the community and the game need it. Because doing it protects their own invested time (in their channels and blogs) -- They need to amplify a simple and POSITIVE message it needs to become a sign off for them - Can pix tell them to stop, make them stop - I'm sure they could but then it would be clear that my whole rant about "insiders are shills" (not all of you SuperHero ) would be all too true. Adrian, mani, droopy, Dr yat --- there are people with a megaphone who can galivnize the community or keep putting work into something that is going to die - because pix is hell bent on living up to ever part of their own "little zynga" claim.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2018 17:21:07 GMT -5
They won't care as long as they're making money. Unless it drops to something dangerously low (like they have a day or two in the week where they barely break 5 digits), it doesn't matter who or how many speak up. Our contacts might not be shills, but the people they talk to are definitely scapegoats.
I doubt Adrian or Droopy will say anything other than what they have been, with adrian's youtube livelihood dependant on being on Pix's good side, amd Droopy calling players that were calling out Pix on P2W 'snowlflakes' around the time the inquisitor came out.
Manni doesn't even acknowledge that he's just a marketing tool when he uploads videos from his battle-rec, and I haven't seen much from him on other games, so he's as reliable as adrian. Never heard of the last one, unless their channel name is something else.
Pix is patting itself on it's back for it's accomplishments, and all they see when we leave or just uninstall is cutting the brush.
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Post by T34 on Mar 28, 2018 17:51:44 GMT -5
zer00eyz - you wrote a letter to a company that doesn't listen? How ironic!!! :-) But good job.
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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 17:54:22 GMT -5
They won't care as long as they're making money. Unless it drops to something dangerously low (like they have a day or two in the week where they barely break 5 digits), it doesn't matter who or how many speak up. Our contacts might not be shills, but the people they talk to are definitely scapegoats. I doubt Adrian or Droopy will say anything other than what they have been, with adrian's youtube livelihood dependant on being on Pix's good side, amd Droopy calling players that were calling out Pix on P2W 'snowlflakes' around the time the inquisitor came out. Manni doesn't even acknowledge that he's just a marketing tool when he uploads videos from his battle-rec, and I haven't seen much from him on other games, so he's as reliable as adrian. Never heard of the last one, unless their channel name is something else. Pix is patting itself on it's back for it's accomplishments, and all they see when we leave or just uninstall is cutting the brush. Im at the point of "ask nicely" for them to get on the right team - with a positive message. This isn't about "inquisitors" or "price" or any one being a "snowflake" this is literally about the heath of the game... The reality is that them speaking up is PROTECTING THEIR INVESTMENT. However with 20 people you can amplify this message on their channel without them, with 100 you can start to harm their viewership, and with 200 or so (time zones are a ?female dog? in this case) you can completely tank it. That is a NUCLEAR option, one that I don't think should even be on the table but it does exist. And with one youtuber you can reach 40k people if you lucky --- it just takes one to start beating the drum and every one else LOOKS BAD. Looking out for players, looking out for the game turns one of them into a stand up citizen -- one of them can win hearts and minds of PLAYERS and with a positive message. We as a community need to simply turn one and then throw our support behind them. Oh yea whereyat is whom I'm speaking of not a youtuber but a blogger none the less.
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Post by zer00eyz on Mar 28, 2018 17:55:05 GMT -5
zer00eyz - you wrote a letter to a company that doesn't listen? How ironic!!! :-) But good job. And I laid out a path to make them too you just have to get behind it...
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Post by Replicant on Mar 28, 2018 18:20:05 GMT -5
Im at the point of "ask nicely" for them to get on the right team - with a positive message. This isn't about "inquisitors" or "price" or any one being a "snowflake" this is literally about the heath of the game... The reality is that them speaking up is PROTECTING THEIR INVESTMENT. However with 20 people you can amplify this message on their channel without them, with 100 you can start to harm their viewership, and with 200 or so (time zones are a ?female dog? in this case) you can completely tank it. That is a NUCLEAR option, one that I don't think should even be on the table but it does exist. And with one youtuber you can reach 40k people if you lucky --- it just takes one to start beating the drum and every one else LOOKS BAD. Looking out for players, looking out for the game turns one of them into a stand up citizen -- one of them can win hearts and minds of PLAYERS and with a positive message. We as a community need to simply turn one and then throw our support behind them. zer00eyz , in most of the threads we've shared I pretty much agree with you, but in this case I'm havin' a hard time seeing the endgame. We've already had high-profile content creators make detailed thoughtful criticisms for extended periods. It had no positive effect that I can discern, and that doesn't really surprise me. A content creator has to entertain. There's a limit to how much negative press people will tolerate before they switch off and move on. The rational arguments for Skill and Choice don't appear to have much traction vs. the guys that are monetizing "power" via gambling mechanics because their data-analysis supports it. To be clear, I don't disagree with your diagnosis, but Pixonic is like a functional alcoholic. She's still fun at parties, so people kinda ignore that she beats her boyfriend and keep inviting her back; and she's still havin' fun so sees no reason to change.
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Post by T34 on Mar 28, 2018 18:20:41 GMT -5
zer00eyz - you wrote a letter to a company that doesn't listen? How ironic!!! :-) But good job. And I laid out a path to make them too you just have to get behind it... I’ve been behind it for a long time
From past experience it seems like they respond to: 1. Negative reviews on googleplay/appstore 2. Negative reviews/rants/ expressions of disappointment on their FB page 3. Overwhelming “undesired” comments on forums and similar (eg, nerf the Haechi, nerf the STs, boycott TDM) 4. Players boycotting and/or behaving in a particular way on mass (tanking, boycott TDM)
Either way. Its all good. The message has to be delivered via multiple channels and repeated. IMO the only other option available at the moment is targeting TDM because many genuinely dislike it, overwhelming majority disagrees with the lack of choice and even those that don’t follow this forum are distancing themselves from TDM. If we cant convince Pix to provide us free choice in terms of what mode we play I am not sure what we can convince them of.
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