It has to do with what EHG has been telling us about freah starts.
They have always said major patchs would be a fresh start.
If cycles are going to run longer then just run events parallel with the current cycle.
Reseting mid cycle patch just kills any drive i have left to keep play the current cycle.
@Scipo0419
First point:
Nah⌠not dino nuggies versus normal nuggies.
The comparison here is normal nuggies versus vegan nuggies. âBut they taste the same!â Nah, they donât.
If it would be the same nobody would need to call them by different names anyway, but thatâs on the side.
Second point:
Ever imagined someone looking forward to playing the game only on weekends for example? Knowing they wonât have the time to make a fantastic character⌠but the cycle-timeframe allows them to make a good one and achieve their personal goal?
Now remove around 20% of that time, will it still be possible? Maybe? If not your argument falls flat already.
Someone who wanted to play 1.1 but couldnât get days off until the 16th. Only got a week, wanted to get into it since otherwise responsibilities are there. Now they canât since this ârefreshâ which was expected at least 20 days later will happen and interrupt it exactly in the middle.
Different people have different circumstances and it screws some of them over majorly. Thatâs the point.
As for some other things:
1.) The arguments for why thatâs not a viable for everyone has been presented. At best hassle, at worst complete loss of motivation. So I wonât go into it.
2.) Itâs a product everyone playing it paid for. Hence theyâre customers. Hence no matter the magnitude of anger, of contained to the specific product itâs absolutely warranted if the product disappoints for one reason or another.
If you pay over 30⏠to play in your holiday and then that gets ripped apart in the middle of your experience because EHG wasnât competent enough to properly handle arising issues then you have absolutely⌠every⌠right to be pissed off to hell about it.
The argument of âitâs just a gameâ is ages old. Yes, it is⌠but also⌠no it isnât.
First of all, itâs something you paid for, second of all itâs probably a quite important aspect of mental stability to escape from a stressful life and third itâs come with specific expectations.
And @oldschooldiablo is absolutely right with his words actually. Not perfectly voiced but what is said is 100% and absolutely true.
You donât interfere in the middle of a cycle.
We were promised the âsanctityâ of the cycle to be upheld.
A ârefreshâ is breaking this âsanctityâ.
End of topic.
How far or little people get angry about it is not anyone elseâs damn business, no matter if itâs mild annoyance, a temper tantrum or a friggin full scale emotional breakdown over it. Itâs utterly disgusting to basically read âYeah, the points are viable but since you were emotional then it shouldnât be taken into considerationâ.
Correction. Theyâve said ânew cycles will start with major patches.â thatâs it. Thereâs been nothing about âno resets with events between major patches.â or âmajor patches will be 3-4 months apart.â
Itâs very much implied though.
Which other game does do cycles and wipes in the middle? I donât know a single one. Itâs all done when a new league/cycle/season/whatever else you wanna call it comes.
Itâs assumed, certainly, because thatâs how all/most other seasonal games do it. But thereâs always a first time for everything.
So youâre holding a company accountable for an assumption about an implication? Ok.
Yes, because itâs part of their job to manage that?
Itâs fairly normal? You go under if you donât do it no matter the segment you work in?
Again, your character is still there. If you have some deadly allergic reaction that prevents you from playing a character once it reaches âlegacyâ, then Iâm sorry. This is truly the worst possible situation for you.
But considering the fact that someone who only has weekends to play (like myself) likely isnât that interested in playing a character for 8 days a month for 3 months only for it to be moved out of the cycle and having to start over with the new cycle. This is the main reason why Iâm grateful to EHG for giving a smaller/no delay between cycle content being added to Legacy. It sucked having to start a new character every few months to experience the new mechanics in D3 and I told myself I wasnât going to do that in D4 (not that I still play it.) I actually do play Cycles in LE now because Legacy is barely different from Cycle aside from the aforementioned favor/items, which I am capable of implementing self restraint on the items and donât horde hundreds of tabs of junk Iâll never use in games like this. I know Iâm a minority in that aspect though.
I lost my train of thought, but my point was that someone with very limited playtime is more likely to not engage seriously with time limited content.
Edit: I remember where I was going with the me playing cycles lol.
I play cycles in LE because I can experience some of the content in the cycle and then my character being moved to legacy doesnât mean I have to make a new one. I probably will, but Iâll also keep playing my previous character. I plan to have 15 characters minimum and then being legacy after a cycle is hardly punishment compared to other seasonal games. I may continue to create cycle characters here and there as I come up with new builds and level them in the cycle, but I donât stop playing them when they hit legacy because I donât have the time to maintain one cycle character, let alone multiple
Hell, I literally started a Marksman in 1.1 after this announcement because I wanted to try a build I made. The fact itâs being moved to legacy in a couple weeks is a non-issue
Itâs not their job to stop you from jumping to your own conclusions. You made an, admittedly reasonable, assumption that EHG was going to handle seasons exactly like everyone else based on the fact that EHG didnât explicitly state they were going to do something differently.
Thatâs literally on you for being upset. EHG neither made, nor broke, any promises.
I think every time they do say something along those lines, 90% of the people arenât really listening. If they say âsimilar to what XYZ does, but we wonât copy it 100%â, all that people remember is âlike XYZ, confirmed!â
Oh, I beg to differ, massively so.
Thatâs what marketing and PR is all about.
And especially with:
The point is that it was after all âreasonableâ.
This assumptions are expectations which will be had, those are the one which need to be managed.
If not then this happens, a 334 posts long thread. So itâs a prime example even.
Sure it can be forgiven, but first of all a step has to be taken from the devs to address it⌠since obviously itâs a issue, if you see it as one or not, this is one absolutely massive thread already⌠so it is, or we wouldnât have gotten here.
80% of this thread is the same 2 people saying âthis is dumb, we hate it!â and the same 3-5 people saying âit could have been handled better, but youâre blowing it out of proportionâ with the other 20% being a mixed bag of people asking questions and having those questions answered.
PR and Communication are meant to relay information to the consumers, not prevent consumers from jumping to conclusions.
Case and point, if I announced to my consumers that âI will be launching a new home goods product in 20 days.â and they jumped to the conclusion that the new product was a blender because my competitors released a blender, but I released an air fryer instead. Itâs not my responsibility they made an assumption and got all upset on their own. I didnât say Iâd be releasing a blender and they shouldnât have assumed I was. At worst I could be asked to relay information more clearly next time. Which I agree, I probably should have been more clear, but I donât owe them a blender because they expected one.
I think EHGs policy of âdonât confirm anythingâ is probably the safest they could do. If they confirm it and plans change (auction house) they get crucified. If people make an assumption and theyâre wrong. They still get crucified, but at least they donât have to say âweâre sorry that plans changed.â lol
Your example doesnât correlate well with the situation.
EHG proclaimed - through Mike - that theyâre aiming for 3-4 month cycles. Maybe longer for the first ones.
1.0 was roughly in that area, hence questions were asked, vague answers were given, results delivered, expectations from those former things formed.
Now itâs the job of EHG to adjust those expectations before it affects people actively.
Intervening into a expected 3 month cycle to reduce it below 3 months is affecting them.
This is the only aspect which was handled badly. They can also reduce it to a week⌠sure, many will leave⌠but they can and it would be no issue in itself. The sole issue was intervening onto a pre-existing established expectation basis and moving outside the range of said expectation.
Thatâs still⌠all there is to it. And any argument falling into critique (well worded or not, mildly worded or extra spicy) is hence viable. Nothing more nothing less.
If they actually provided coherent and well written info this whole mess wouldnât happen since people have basis on what to expect.
So nah, the opposite of your suggestion there, yours will make the game go to shit and die, happened to so so many before already because of this.
I donât feel bad. They have their first two seasons economies ruined by dupers because:
All they did was announce a dupe happened and the dupers have been banned. and then literally nothing else is said. Both times
And now they announce 1.1 is ending early, but not because of 1.2. They havenât even stated why they are doing it in blunt terms.
They are absolutely not communicating with regards to duping, and how they can minimize itâs impact in the future. I donât trust them anymore and honestly Iâm moving on to other games.
And I gave you an example where he explicitly says that they donât want to lock themselves into it. They will try to fall into the 3-4 months range, and Llama highlighted the bit about âwe want to be agile on the timing of things at least for the first yearâ.
You see⌠thereâs a nice saying that states: âYou canât canât communicateâ. (And thatâs actually written right there)
It states basically that no matter what you do, even if you donât say a word⌠you communicate something. You can only convey things⌠and itâs up to you what you try to convey and how well you do it to ensure that it reaches as many of your recipients as possible.
The implicated message was trying to stay within 3-4 month with likelyhood of overtime until they manage their stuff.
It goes the opposite side, hence nobody gives a singular shit about it possibly and maybe being implied that it could go this way. The communication there was bad, and thatâs it.
Also as was mentioned all too often before⌠the duping was never properly addressed, neither the first nor the second time.
After such a thing the following needs to happen:
Addressing the issue, banning the culprits, directly stating which measures - if any - will be taken for the cycle and for the future.
Issue was addressed, culprit banned, silence for the important part.
And now after several weeks we get a reaction⌠that has to be a Day 1 rection, not a week 2 one.
Itâs a gross failure, it doesnât slip easily.
Now it also affects people which werenât before, which is CoF people for example.
Itâs like a shooter has appeared but instead of stopping the shooter they shoot him and then turn wildly around shooting at everyone else in their sight on top, just to make sure!
You see⌠the only thing which stops the people complaining (and not us discussing it, but those which say it once, are pissed off and simply leave from doing exactly that, or not even speaking out) is by giving out a official statement, acknowledging the parts which have been handled badly and saying what they wanna do to address them in the future, and which ones.
But⌠alas⌠where is that? We havenât seen it with the dupe and we havenât seen it now. And sifting through Mikeâs vods, the discord, reddit or small answers on the forum for that manner just doesnât cut it.
No, you are cherry-picking the message you want to understand, ignoring communication strategies you yourself use, using limiters like âtryâ. In this example I gave, it was not even about longer or shorter. Either you are mixing it up with other times Mike talked about it, or you misremember/misinterpret.
No matter what EHG would say, people will find a way to twist words and interpret the message they intend to hear, ignoring everything else. Four sides of communication at work.
I agree that more clear announcement in the official section would be nice. A FAQ where the answers are as clear as possible.
âHow long will a cycle last?â
âWe cannot make promises. We aim for a duration of 3-4 months, but it could be longer or shorter.â
But as you say: no message is also a message. If they donât officially announce an end date for a cycle, not even a timeframe, they communicate that there is no set timeframe.
On one side, I am tempted to say that people are overreacting, but at the same time, it needs to be said that you cannot âuhm, actuallyâ your way out of miscommunication.
PR is not legally binding contract work.
Just to take an example, many interpreted their stance on economy resets as âwe are going to only reset for new cyclesâ, the fact that âuhm actually, the directionality of the implication goes only in one way and not the other, and thereforeâŚâ is largely irrelevant.
This is not a mathematical proof, it is an interaction with humans whom we know, are prone to jumping to conclusions. This is exactly the same thing that happened when they announced item gifting, and were surprised by the fact that people interpreted their previous communication wrong.
Now, some annoyed players may come to the forums to discuss, where you can absolutely annihilate them with facts and logic to tell them that, in fact, they were wrong, and they should feel bad.
However, most players will just be annoyed ad the miscommunication, lose a bit of faith in EHG, and move on to other games.
To be fair, I only point that out to people who are seemingly believing their character will be lost and/or people who think Cycle have any additional features not present in Legacy at the moment.
Only 2 times I said this in this thread was to the guy saying âlost motivation because my character will disappear in 3 weeksâ and now to this guy who said âI want to participate in the event, but do not wish to start freshâ.
I donât play Legacy and probably never will too.