Here are my opinions from a neutral standpoint - not biased towards FunPlus / XII Braves / Whales / Dolphins / F2P.
1. Is the game developer listening too much or too little?
This is not a simple 'Yes or No' question as there were variations through time.
Prior to closed beta and game launch, the game developer listens a lot. Yes, a lot!
A lot of changes were made to the game such as nerfing Magebane Shizu and Elementalist Kiera which were great balancing.
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Valiant Force was in its golden era all the way till its peak at the Winter Crown / Twin Frost Ascension / Snowman Invasion season.
Ever since the Lunar New Year (Wings of the Ancient / Ancient Awakening / Elemental Chaos / Darkness Descends) update, the game developer started turning inwards and stopped listening that much. So what exactly happened during this period? This brings me to my next point.
2. Customer service standards took a dive to oblivion.
I recalled how fast (and responsive) the in-game customer service responded to my call for pleas when something bitter happened to me in-game.
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Unfortunately, things started changing drastically when responses became
templated and could even go as silly as 'Kindly record a video of how to reproduce the game crash instance.'
This is not just me alone but many of my friends also faced the same issue. Most of us are working adults, some of them work on rotating shifts and do not have the time to download, install, learn how to use, and then finally record an in-game video of how to reproduce the game crash instance. We need to catch our sleep and do not have spare time to do so. Many chose to quit the game instead of recording that 'crash' video.
Uninstalling the game app is so much faster, less frustrating, and we get to catch an additional hour of sleep before starting another long day of work. What about the money we spent in-game? Well, we are grown-up adults and we know what are the risks to bear when paying for mobile games. At most take it as a lesson learned not to 'invest' in such game companies again. There are so many more reliable mobile game companies such as
Supercell,
GameLoft,
Nexon,
Square Enix, and even
LINE to 'invest' on.
Back to the question of customer service standards, why can't they just accept text-based reporting?
Players do not have to spend time recording, processing and uploading videos, the game developer side do not have to spend time watching that video either.
It is so much faster and all of us can catch an additional hour of sleep, win-win situation.
3. Recycled Events and Game Assets
From the Snowman Invasion (Halloween 2) to Darkness Descends (Titans of Coliseum 2) to Firestorm Ascension (Twin Frost Ascension 2), event maps and styles started to become recycled which many long time players can identify.
Some would argue how much they love the tower event and hope that it can return again soon. Some dread to play another tower event as it is way too time-consuming where manual play is required to clear the higher floors. There are always two sides to a coin but the game developer should listen to both sides and strike a perfect balance.
The Curious Carnival of Horrors (Seraphina / Kahuna) and Elemental Chaos (Drake / Victoria) are great designs and the game developer should continue to produce new contents in this direction instead of recycling past events.
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4. Guild Raid & Discord (not the app)
New feature for players to participate as a guild? Awesome design and something new to explore!
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However, another kind of problem surfaces. The guild raid feature is designed for top performing guilds while guilds on the lower end are left to - rot. Many players starting 'moving house', guilds get disbanded, and there are also in-fighting taking place internally due to performance issues.
Even as the guild master of a casual and social guild, I truly hoped to have some fun with my guild members but things turned the other way round. Guild members who could not contribute as much as they hoped to got frustrated and decided to quit the game for good. Others who still love the game continued to remain but did not participate in the guild raid ever again, even with the recent reduction in raid boss difficulty.
Despite being the first person in the guild to hit the raid boss (after the nerf) and also encouraged guild members to do so through communication channels such as in-game guild chat and facebook messenger, everyone seems to be traumatized and no longer want to do it again. This has certainly scarred the game experience for many players and might last them a lifetime. Should I be angry and expel these guild members because of the game developer's decision to make the guild raid bosses so difficult? Certainly not.
5. Final Words
Majority of my real life friends and pioneer (spending) guild members have quitted Valiant Force for good.
Some returned older mobile game titles such as
Valkyrie Crusade,
Summoners War,
Fate/Grand Order, others moved on to newer mobile game titles such as
King's Raid and
War of Crown.
I have also stopped spending in-game (optional) as I can no longer see any more 'value' aside from the unbalanced Summoner Heroes.
4 more Summoner Heroes to be released and this game will soon turn into Summoners' War where the Valiants are forgotten.
Some words for the game developer? Definitely.
While it is certainly too late to apologize to players who have quitted for good, it is never too late to change for the better and rebuild the player population.
1. Restart the once great communications with the game community, be it on the Facebook Page, Official Forum, even simple Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) style posts would help a lot! Of course, the game developer has to be active and reply to the questions, not keep quiet.
2. Stop recycling events and start writing new story chapters, even
character side stories with playable quests are great!
3. The recent developer blog on
Guild Raid 2.0 certainly helps brighten up the mood for many (remaining) players and I really hope the Beginner Dungeon is accessible to everyone, not just for low level guilds and then disappears forever once the guild has grown.
4. XII Braves should train up the customer service staff and perhaps even enforce a rule that every employee must be a player or have played Valiant Force before. It is worrying to know that customer service staff do not even know the difference between a valiant or normal hero as well as stat rune vs skill rune.
5. #MakeValiantForceGreatAgain
