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  • Main problems with R2Games

    When we complain about Wartune here, on the forum, we usually get the reply that R2Games is only a platform, not the developers, so they can help little. This is true to an extent, however, I think R2Games contribute his share to the problems. Unlike game bugs, I hope these issues can be addressed actively by forum mods, so I will list them here, hoping for a positive outcome.

    Promotions by R2Games, announced, but reward never given.

    Here are some examples:
    http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....n-Big-Rewards!
    Big reward announced to be lotteried for those who used Xsolla. This event never had a reward. They did not even bother to announce a fake winner.

    http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....)-Lucky-Posts!
    Reward for every X post, and those who give good suggestions. No rewards announced and given, although a lot of good and useful suggestions were posted. There were some other Anniversary events too, but reward was only for the ones which were about recharge. It's quite bad when you say, give us suggestions, and then no summary of suggestions, no rewards to those who gave suggestions...

    You had a „summer events” where players could play some mini-events for small rewards, that event was aborted without a word mid-event and with no rewards given out.

    Adding VAT to the prices

    This is a really serious issue. Currently, your prices are 20 (TWENTY!) times higher than those in China. An Odin evolve costs 600 USD here, 30 USD in China. Other versions (like Russian) has a fraction price too, compared to yours. When you have a super-expensive service, customers have hard time suffering an additional 20-27% increase in prices. Especially, since you are an USA company, which already pays SALES tax. You shouldn't charge BOTH sales tax and VAT to the European players. I know, you are giving bigger and bigger gift packs with recharge promotions, but still, the game cost has increased a lot. While you try to milk the few remaining cows, you scare away the light and medium cashers. You should pay the VAT/sales tax etc yourself from this extra profit, and not charge it to players. I know a lot who stopped recharging due to this.

    New R2Games site

    I know you were happy to renew your site, but we, players, weren't. In Wartune, I can't select server on login anymore, your page is unable to remember username and password in most cases, the painfully long loading time is even longer due to your new R2Games animation, the free balens subpage is gone, finding support is difficult, and the payment system is bugged. Many other features which worked earlier have died, like automatically logging in for the forum when I login to the game.

    Information flow between players and developers

    We know that you get the event schedule well ahead from the developers, still, you refuse to post it, you post events only for the current day. You might think surprises are fun, but we, the players don't think so. We have to run character on oceanic server to see what's coming up or have to check other platform forums where the events are posted. It is extremely difficult to believe that you try to ensure a constant flow of information between players and developers, when you don't even allow information to flow which you have.

    It would be cruical that you fullfill your role of ensuring information flow between players and the game developers. You should make sure there are more surveys, and a better summary of what changes players want, and you forward it to the developers. And make sure it gets done! When a bug or change affects the players positively, it gets corrected in a matter of hours. When it's negative, its a month or never. I especially refer to nerfs, Lord of Time, clothing event, sylph arena, dimensions, sky trials and all the others we complain here on the forum without being heard.

    Customer support

    Actually, this is a positive experience for me. After 2 years of calling CS useless, now I feel it has improved, your GMs are actually helping. The waiting time is still 1 week, but it's a good start.
    My blog about how to build the strongest character in Wartune using a minimum amount of balens:

  • #2
    Originally posted by Fherlayt View Post
    When we complain about Wartune here, on the forum, we usually get the reply that R2Games is only a platform, not the developers, so they can help little. This is true to an extent, however, I think R2Games contribute his share to the problems. Unlike game bugs, I hope these issues can be addressed actively by forum mods, so I will list them here, hoping for a positive outcome.
    In reality, platform means also some responsibility:
    - I've reported several time connection issues, 404/403 and 408/409 error which are in R2's responsibility (last mile issue)
    - I sent the full log of those error in dump, of course with lots of screen from graphs from this report
    - result: Even if I try to keep ticket alive, 2 month ago they stopped to send me those "we sent it to developers" and they closed it without even notice it to me

    Lag is again shown as pure developers issue, but nobody from R2 accepts that their aggregation level between real and virtual HW is too much constraining, especially during multi-party events such as chaos war, steel war, titan wars, arena, atoll boss to name few. But who added unneeded JavaScript loading code, Google Analytics, Identity exports to third parties (who needs my identity in Missouri based U.S. hosting service), developers?

    On the other side, after we reported that EU servers are placed on former dating service, DNS was corrected within few hours ...

    Originally posted by Fherlayt View Post
    Promotions by R2Games, announced, but reward never given.

    Here are some examples:
    http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....n-Big-Rewards!
    Big reward announced to be lotteried for those who used Xsolla. This event never had a reward. They did not even bother to announce a fake winner.

    http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....)-Lucky-Posts!
    Reward for every X post, and those who give good suggestions. No rewards announced and given, although a lot of good and useful suggestions were posted. There were some other Anniversary events too, but reward was only for the ones which were about recharge. It's quite bad when you say, give us suggestions, and then no summary of suggestions, no rewards to those who gave suggestions...

    You had a „summer events” where players could play some mini-events for small rewards, that event was aborted without a word mid-event and with no rewards given out.
    You have not yet realized that Xsolla was Xsolla promotion? So if Xsolla does not provide reward, they grab only incentives ...

    BTW, Xsolla is used as in-game payment gateway (different that you can use from payments page) and it direct to Chinese accounts instead of U.S. ones ... so saving for R2Games. This is why promotion was made, and do they pay the U.S. sales tax for it, and EU VAT?

    Originally posted by Fherlayt View Post
    Adding VAT to the prices

    This is a really serious issue. Currently, your prices are 20 (TWENTY!) times higher than those in China. An Odin evolve costs 600 USD here, 30 USD in China. Other versions (like Russian) has a fraction price too, compared to yours. When you have a super-expensive service, customers have hard time suffering an additional 20-27% increase in prices. Especially, since you are an USA company, which already pays SALES tax. You shouldn't charge BOTH sales tax and VAT to the European players. I know, you are giving bigger and bigger gift packs with recharge promotions, but still, the game cost has increased a lot. While you try to milk the few remaining cows, you scare away the light and medium cashers. You should pay the VAT/sales tax etc yourself from this extra profit, and not charge it to players. I know a lot who stopped recharging due to this.
    All the Odin/Frigg and in future Thor is an example of big whales strategy - who paid is big whale - maybe 12% more will pay after being constantly smashed by big whales, rest will ... oh, you did not count with small whales, bloggers and community ...
    As I wrote in other post, this is example of poor dividing promotion (there were easier way how to resolve it - by the needed item price, while keeping the price of sylph in reasonable margin - then slowly drop price for the upgrade items, make casher events with them ... and get more from it). As payment of 60,000 balens (or 3-5 times 60,000 ub as it is not enough to have 1 Odin a/o 1 Frigg while 1 Thor is OK) is over limit for many players that can spend 80,000 balens monthly, but not for single overpriced item (albeit marriage is overpriced too as no kid advantage is transferred to our servers).

    This is not the only issue, the other associated issue is the lottery laws in EU countries:
    - unbound balens can be only received by real money
    - these unbound balens an only them are used for random rewards, which fulfil the definition of lottery, so the randomizer should be certified ...
    - some EU countries distinguish between online goods, online services, online games and online lottery VAT
    - so which tax they pay?

    Originally posted by Fherlayt View Post
    New R2Games site

    I know you were happy to renew your site, but we, players, weren't. In Wartune, I can't select server on login anymore, your page is unable to remember username and password in most cases, the painfully long loading time is even longer due to your new R2Games animation, the free balens subpage is gone, finding support is difficult, and the payment system is bugged. Many other features which worked earlier have died, like automatically logging in for the forum when I login to the game.
    We lost ability to see our tickets, the registration email is gone ...

    The new ticketing system is less controllable so ... lots of merges, closed unresolved tickets etc

    And my antivirus found more attempts to export my identity to unrelated services - FB, G+ to name few

    Originally posted by Fherlayt View Post
    Information flow between players and developers

    We know that you get the event schedule well ahead from the developers, still, you refuse to post it, you post events only for the current day. You might think surprises are fun, but we, the players don't think so. We have to run character on oceanic server to see what's coming up or have to check other platform forums where the events are posted. It is extremely difficult to believe that you try to ensure a constant flow of information between players and developers, when you don't even allow information to flow which you have.

    It would be cruical that you fullfill your role of ensuring information flow between players and the game developers. You should make sure there are more surveys, and a better summary of what changes players want, and you forward it to the developers. And make sure it gets done! When a bug or change affects the players positively, it gets corrected in a matter of hours. When it's negative, its a month or never. I especially refer to nerfs, Lord of Time, clothing event, sylph arena, dimensions, sky trials and all the others we complain here on the forum without being heard.
    This is role of the release manager, who is in R2 responsible?
    - we have War of Eternity notification, but no war
    - we have daily login event with rewards consisting items not yet released (they are then skipped in delivery)
    - we have events with cancelled or obsolete items
    - we have events with invalid content like unlimited on limited events etc
    - we have items in daily bonus for marriage tree, that are not released
    - we have testing servers, whose serious bugs are ignored and appear in the full roll-out, and then maintained in few hours or next day

    The other role is product manager and valuation manager:
    - product manager is responsible for the content of the releases and prioritization of development (why developers create new versions of successful dungeons, while major bugs are not corrected?) and listing to Voice of the Customer through community people
    - valuation manager is responsible for the pricing list, discounts and promotion events, it also includes the dimension markets and magic shop, who trust the discounts there?

    Originally posted by Fherlayt View Post
    Customer support

    Actually, this is a positive experience for me. After 2 years of calling CS useless, now I feel it has improved, your GMs are actually helping. The waiting time is still 1 week, but it's a good start.
    So you are now VIP, I am waiting 2 months and they still no answer ... for payment issue.
    Last edited by P-J-J; 10-13-2015, 11:01 AM.

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    • #3
      some realy good points ere but alas r2 will never admit failure they will pass the buck as always

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      • #4
        Good additions, P-J-J, thx! I wonder if anyone from R2 will reply to this topic?
        My blog about how to build the strongest character in Wartune using a minimum amount of balens:

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        • #5

          For those that are complaining about the balen cost for Loki/Odin sylph, has it ever occurred to you that it's really not intended for players to buy 60,000 balens all at once? The high prices are there for two reasons:
          #1. They know some people both have and are willing to spend the money to have stronger/unique characters in the game quicker, so they make it available.
          #2. Players that reach the top tier portion of the game quicker will tend to grow tired of the game quicker, so from a business stand point, they want to make sure they get their money: expected life of subscribed player tends to be inversely proportional to the expected money player will spend, which is basically a mathematical reiteration of what I just said. All of the server mergers can testify to that. They would rather more players stay with the game longer and spend the same amount of money spread out over a longer period of time, but human nature(ego, etc.) and the usual life expectancy of a game tends to dictate otherwise.

          If you really want the Loki/Odin sylph and don't want to spend a lot of money all at once, then start buying balens in small amounts over a longer period of time and save them until you have enough. If you don't buy balens, then you're SOL and have nothing to complain about. Besides, I fail to see what is so special about the Loki/Odin or any of the other merged sylphs. They still can't protect themselves against all of the other elemental attacks simultaneously. Basically you're paying a lot of extra cash just to have 2 different elemental attacks on the same sylph and an over-inflated battle rating.

          Comment


          • #6
            There is nothing in the BR formula that says "Loki or Odin = extra x BR". It is all about the actual stats of the sylph. Therefore, if those sylphs has an inflated BR, it means they have higher stats than others.

            The only thing that is over-inflated in terms of BR are the kids. Their BR formula is wrong in that their HP is not 5 hp = 1 BR like everything else. It is 1 HP = 1 BR. That is why they have so much more BR than your toon.

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            • #7
              Players always need goals, goals which they can achieve eventually. People who wanted could have an orange sylph right after the first mahra sale, but they paid a hell lot for it. Medium cashers waited, and did smaller purchases over the time, optimizing mahra/balen cost with events. For light cashers and for even free players, it took a lot more, but they could eventually achieve it. Goals must be achieveable, the cost only determines the time needed.

              With Odin, light and even medium cashers do not have any hope to get it eventually. Yes, someone who pays "only" 100 USD a month could do that he recharge 100 each month, and dont buy ANYTHING for half year. But you all know it, this is impossible. If you have balens, you will always spend some. Problem is, materials can be always discounted, given as gift with recharge. But there is a fix balen cost, unless they plain modify it, its hard to make achieveable for mere mortals.

              Odin cost is just a good way to teach players how pointless is to spend balens. If I were R2, I wouldn't do this. Players don't need this lesson. Players need motivation to spend
              My blog about how to build the strongest character in Wartune using a minimum amount of balens:

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              • #8
                About Xsolla, the post was made by an R2 employee, and I bet the reward is not paid by Xsolla, but by R2. So not giving it out is their sole responsibility.
                My blog about how to build the strongest character in Wartune using a minimum amount of balens:

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                • #9
                  Would add I can't login to the forum anymore from Windows 10 computer, lol... Tried all browsers, when I log into the game, it does not log into the forum. When I click login on forum, it redirects to the "new, revised platform" and still not in forum... works in win7.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    I even had that problem after checking in the "remember me" box that supposed to save the log in and pull it up when I navigate right into it. Only time I should have to manually re-log in is after my own maintenance where caches, settings, and other storables are cleared; which I do very much weekly.
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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Fherlayt View Post
                      About Xsolla, the post was made by an R2 employee, and I bet the reward is not paid by Xsolla, but by R2. So not giving it out is their sole responsibility.
                      Xsolla made a promotion that some R2 announced here. So same way as they put blame on 7road developers, they are quiet on Xsolla and bring yesterday the new Indonesian gateway.

                      Originally posted by Lanilya View Post
                      Would add I can't login to the forum anymore from Windows 10 computer, lol... Tried all browsers, when I log into the game, it does not log into the forum. When I click login on forum, it redirects to the "new, revised platform" and still not in forum... works in win7.
                      Maybe you need to compromise W10 security as several JavaScript codes are not signed and they use only Chrome-specific event management. The events reserved by Microsoft, Maxthon ... are not supported. I found this in support evaluation form, where they call Chrome specific events on clicking the buttons and suggest me to install it (as a solution, not workaround).

                      In summary, despite its fancy look, the new portal is less usable than the old one.

                      Originally posted by Meikura001 View Post
                      I even had that problem after checking in the "remember me" box that supposed to save the log in and pull it up when I navigate right into it. Only time I should have to manually re-log in is after my own maintenance where caches, settings, and other storables are cleared; which I do very much weekly.
                      The reason is that they use very strange system of JavaScript codes that does not implement single sign-on well. The login is remembered only for the game page, but nobody told forum, old support pages etc to use the same mechanism.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Fherlayt View Post
                        Players always need goals, goals which they can achieve eventually. People who wanted could have an orange sylph right after the first mahra sale, but they paid a hell lot for it. Medium cashers waited, and did smaller purchases over the time, optimizing mahra/balen cost with events. For light cashers and for even free players, it took a lot more, but they could eventually achieve it. Goals must be achieveable, the cost only determines the time needed.

                        With Odin, light and even medium cashers do not have any hope to get it eventually. Yes, someone who pays "only" 100 USD a month could do that he recharge 100 each month, and dont buy ANYTHING for half year. But you all know it, this is impossible. If you have balens, you will always spend some. Problem is, materials can be always discounted, given as gift with recharge. But there is a fix balen cost, unless they plain modify it, its hard to make achieveable for mere mortals.

                        Odin cost is just a good way to teach players how pointless is to spend balens. If I were R2, I wouldn't do this. Players don't need this lesson. Players need motivation to spend
                        About goals: funny how this sounds but clothing synthesis is as hard as ever, while everything else seems to be viable and easy to upgrade now (element resistance, sylph, eudaemon).
                        Interestingly, they don't mind putting the clothing exchange for clothing shards for a couple of months so that players will have a goal to collect enough clothing shards in hope to
                        have a set of special costume that has a bonus title to it...
                        For those who think event mounts is the only way to up BR, veteran players would know that clothing refine is the legit way to do it.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Imonseph View Post
                          About goals: funny how this sounds but clothing synthesis is as hard as ever, while everything else seems to be viable and easy to upgrade now (element resistance, sylph, eudaemon).
                          Interestingly, they don't mind putting the clothing exchange for clothing shards for a couple of months so that players will have a goal to collect enough clothing shards in hope to
                          have a set of special costume that has a bonus title to it...
                          For those who think event mounts is the only way to up BR, veteran players would know that clothing refine is the legit way to do it.
                          Miklos spoke about setting goals in game, goals that must be achievable for the game to be playable. Not so many players will play game where everything is available only for cash.

                          Notably:
                          1) Clothing synthesis, I see rapid drop in speed by redesign of events, but it is still achievable but in longer period. BTW, I do not yet have full emperor set, as I focus on free upgrades, so next level will take me 1 year more then was previously achievable
                          2) Element resistance is available more due to dimensions, but now the events were redesigned to slow down it. Again now level 9 is the target so adoption of level 12 and possible double crystals in future only will be longer by 4-6 months
                          3) Sylph, there are items that are still available only for cash, such as gear upgrade stuff.
                          4) Eudemon, same, gear upgrade stuff (flames) again only for cash; and due to bad reward design of Bounty Targets, some free stuff again for cash only.

                          So, how player can plan his upgrades if sylph/eudemon gear upgrade (3/4 upgrades to max) is for cash?
                          And due to constant nerfing of previously available events (I want to exchange souls to mtw and runes, and soon all to mtw due to 4 new lvl 200 mounts), lots of players left frustrated as the goal which looks achievable is prolonged or by removing availability of free items (advanced sepulchrum) it seems almost non-achievable without cash.
                          So the valuation of R2 is focused more on immediate return of cash and less on ARPU (free players), which is short term strategy that lead to reduction of player base, even if $100,000 whales remain, not all whales want to compete each other, lots of them need free players to compete to valuate their investment.

                          So game will survive if free players can enter and play, not all games are Stars on Boston matrix forever, cash Cows are good too. This game needs focus on bugs, support and stabilizing player base, otherwise it fast turns into Dogs and we will be forced to play other Wartune clone. Not mentioning better community work - btw, who thinks that R2 works with player proposals?

                          Note:
                          Mounts with hooves, clothing with refines, and new 4 mounts with training are only limited boosts in BR (and BR is not all if you are fighting with Refined goddess blessing with 40% damage reduction and enhanced determination with 60% boost), and you need to collect lots of to have reasonable boost which can be achieved by red gear with 8/10 moons.
                          Yes, titles have big values, but it was only promotion to show carrot to big cashers as the values are absolute and even criticality and block has cap.
                          Last edited by P-J-J; 10-21-2015, 10:03 AM.

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                          • #14
                            The biggest problem with R2 games is the customer support. They have a couple of good ones, but those are unpaid, powerless forum mods or mentors. They can't do much.

                            The rest, including most of the forum mods, are completely useless. In many cases, even less than useless. They actually do the brand harm with their arrogance, contempt for the player base, abuse of power and little p*censored*s syndrome. In any other place, they would have been outed as Manchurian Candidates and fired.

                            Having a good customer service can go a long way to prolonging and stabilising the player base. Instead, R2 seem to pick those who will actively alienate the player base and therefore reduce that player base and destablise it. R2's business model seems to be extremely short term focused: Get in with new stuff, make a killing, kick the customers so they stop playing, start up another new thing. Rinse and repeat.

                            Unfortunately, this works. How many players you know start a new toon in a new server and put as much balens into the new toon as they did with the old one, only to have their No1 statues wrecked when the server merge with an older one? They then move on to a new server and repeat the same?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              How many servers have been merged in a cluster, and yet nothing is done to dispel the lags that is associated with such. Personally, and honestly, merges should not even happen in the first place, especially if they do more harm than benefit. The biggest number of merges I had seen in a game I had played before I set foot onto R2 was around 5-6 servers in a cluster, and that was after everything was tested out to ensure it will hold with many people.

                              People start a new server because they wanted to be the best, but also wanted to get away from the cr.ap that happens on their old server. What's the point in going to a new server if they are going to be merged with an older one or even the one they had left from? The players are getting smart and are not spending any more due to many things, and like you said, R2/7Road just doesn't care much anymore as they wanted to clear out the board by making players quit on their own free will instead of pulling the plug and promoting their new games hoping those players would be foolish enough to join and spend.
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