What you see - and what you get.

[ksinori]

Haven't had trouble with an adventure since May - but today I really experienced a bad one. And on top of that - I ended up in the hands of a supporter that was out of touch.

Pressed attack. The general didn't move on screen. In the generals garrsion it said "Waiting for orders." Oh well - did not have time for more, so I left the game for something like 3 hours.
When I returned he had attacked - he was part of a double-block, so surely I did loose troops.

Of course I wrote support, as that could not be right.

Here is the killing support I got:

---------

I wrote:
"Was doing Traitors with a double-block.
Block general no. 1 was sent off. But nothing happend on the screen. I
checked the garrison, and what I could see, was "Waiting for orders" - so no
need to do anything. I didn't have more time, so I left the game.
3 hours later I returned to the game and could see that block general no. 1
had done a full attack.

He had won the fight as I do my blocks with a fairly high win probabillity.
However - that illusion with nothing happening on the screen and the general
still "waiting for orders", cost me 159Cavalry and 1Militia of a setting on
original 1M 193C.

So this was the last maintenance hidden surprise. Then it is really dangerous
to play adventures now.

I am lvl 50, so please do not tell me that I have made any mistakes. I have
no chance to control my game-play if I get misslead like that, on an
adventure.

Futhermore - it is getting harder and harder to attach and de-attach troops
to a general.

Last time I had problem with an adventure (that is a long time ago) I was
told that I could not be compensated, because I had finished the adventure,
so this time, (I will hate it), but I will leave the adventure unfinished -
at least untill my troop-number hits the ceiling. Strange that I have to do
that, but hey - then it is not that, stopping you from compensate.

It is a horrible and huge bug this one, hurry to the dev. guys with the info.

Thank you.

--------

Support wrote:

"Hello ksinori,

Thank you for taking the time to get in touch.

Thank you for the feedback on the adding/removing troops from generals. We will get that sent to the Devs.
But please be aware that Blocking is a tactic the community introduced to the game, as blocking was never officially coded in the game you will find you may have all kinds of issues when doing them.
Officially, you need to clear all camps before wanting to reach your final target camp, that's how the game was designed to be. We can guarantee you that If you had followed that principle the issue would not have occurred.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of blocking, as a rule, we can't compensate players for any loss as we do not provide support for that issue.
If you have any questions please let me know.
Kind regards,
BB_Blackwill
"The Settlers Online" Support Team

-----

I wrote:

"Yes-yes - got the point with blocks are on your own risk - but did you even read what happend to me?

I sent a general. Pressed "Attack" He did not start moving on the map - I checked his garrison - he was "Waiting for orders" - so no matter what his task was, I was not able to do anything, as I got no animated, moving general and I was told he wasn't moving in his garrison. Therefore I did not press "retreate".
3 hours later, when I returned to the game - he HAD attacked.

That - I really cannot be blamed. And as I wrote - I lost 159C and 1M because the game played a fool on me.

I really cannot explain it better.

It was NOT a block that went wrong - it was misleading information from the game to me.

I will however keep on trying to explain it if you do not understand what I am writing.

sincerely

Jan Jakobsen - aka ksinori (When on TSO)

----------

He wrote:

"Hello ksinori,

I understand what you meant, however issues like the one you had are down to lag.
Lag can come from different sources and it's hard to pin point the origin, it could be us, it could be your network, it could even be the PC itself.
As I said, before we have sent the report to the Devs and they will look into it.
Thanks!

Kind regards,
BB_Blackwill
"The Settlers Online" Support Team


---------

I wrote:

Okay - I will give you one shot more - then I will spread this fun on the forum.

I did NOT get any animation on the screen from the general, when clicking on his garrison the general was "Waiting for orders."
How can I then know that he was actually attacking?

It is NOT the loss that concerns me - it is the fact that the game misslead me.
I don't like that.

Something is really, really wrong when I cannot trust what I see.

And stop blaming the players - that is a really bad attitude.

I should not have to write you - the game should work. And if you write Beta-game one more time I will loose a fuse here ;-)

---------

He wrote:

Hello ksinori,

I have already sent your report to the Developers of the game, here on Support we cannot make changes to the game if there were any issues with it, we can only report them, and that has been done.
If you have any questions of anything else to report please let me know.

Regards,
BB_Blackwill
"The Settlers Online" Support Team

---------

I wrote:

I give up - you clearly do NOT know much about the game.
-----

Guess who is considering if this game is worth that much of my time and money.

[Kotugo]

Its understandable that losing troops is annoying, but support are much less likely to assist if you are overly aggressive with them.

Blocks are a bit of an abuse of game mechanics, in this case if you had just been attacking the way the game was designed, the attack would have been fine no matter how laggy it had been.

I have lost troops in a similar way, but the way I see it, the cost in troops I have saved from being able to block at all far outweigh any losses I get from an occasional bad attack. Also losing cavalry isn't a major loss, I would probably only be very annoyed if it was xbows I lost since they tend to be the hardest to replace.

It doesn't really apply to traitors, but I found it a lot easier to time blocks if I have no other players invited to adventures (2/3 player ones), as soon as you add an extra player it causes the lag to shoot up :(

[ksinori]

The real issue is this simple line - that apparently is hard to understand:

I did NOT get any animation on the screen from the general, when clicking on his garrison the general was "Waiting for orders."
How can I then know that he was actually attacking?

[Jeans78]

I really have read this thread carefully through - and BB - do something. Show us - you really appriciate your playsers - and take us serious.
Took a look at this guys Island - and as far as I can se - he have used a big amount on this game. So please show that you take this seriously. We all know there can be errors in this game - but this one - was really bad. Errors here dont cost troops or anything - its just anoying. This one really was a real fault - not just an error - and the fault wasn't on the player, but the game.

I dont think many players of this game do have the amount of money to spend on this game - as this guy seems to have - and if he - and more like him leaves the game - because support can't manage the decission to give him some kind of excuse or at least to cover his losses, then BB dont understand much.

A player on lvl 50 - spending this amount on the game - doesn't try to cheat anyone - I guess he just want an explanion -and understanding for the problem fra support. Support often sends us answers that shows - they don't know anything about the game - just the technic about it. Thats not allrigth.

Just my opinion jeans78

[Gavona]

The real issue is this simple line - that apparently is hard to understand:

I did NOT get any animation on the screen from the general, when clicking on his garrison the general was "Waiting for orders."
How can I then know that he was actually attacking?It happens to lower mortals too. Besides the visuals I have also found the information in the "News" tab to be misleading. In Nords the other day I got a "Your general is retreating message" but in fact he didn't retreat and returned to the garrison wounded with no troops. It is the entire interface that is misleading.
I

[Krydolph]

The biggest problem I see with the reply from support is that BB keeps referring to blocks as basicly bug abuse! Of course a block is on your own risk, and shouldn't be reimbursed on regulair ocations. But you should see that when you have unlocked the buildings you can get and cleared your island, blocks are the only thing thats keeps some fun in your game - it is certanly not building farms and wells we love!

When this is said, forget this was for a block, imgine it happens for someone who forgets to press ok after he changed the setting on his general, and attacks by mistake, he then sees its wrong, but doesnt retreat because it wasn't sent. then he leaves his computer like ksinori, or maybe he just goes to the island to accept some trades, because we have learned from other topics that if you dont accept instantly, you may lose your resources "because the mailbox isnt an extra storage"
Wouldn't that be a real problem then?

When all this bb bashing is done - then I want to point out that he several times declares that he has made devs aware of this problem, so its not like he just dismisses it all together!

[Peajay]

It is sad to see friends quitting this game due to lost troops costing 24 hours of down time, training up to 200 cavalry means barracks are busy not training recruits or other troops you'd be training to adventure with.

Unless BB can solve the server lag issues, more people will stop playing, plain and simple.

[Eliseu]

What can i say...i had a bug happening(troops were what i selected after sending but when the log appeared,the troops were the old ones),opened a thread about it,send message to support...of course,they blame me and my connection when clearly,connection has nothing to do with this.
Same BB_Blackwill.He even copy-pasted the same response after my 3rd mail of bringing arguments.
Of course,it ended with the conclusion that it's my fault and i had lag cuz of my connection,everything is fine at their end.
For like one month things have been getting worse and worse and it's clearly not our fault but no...they refuse to admit it.
Nothing more to say to this...what can you do ? they will say nothing is wrong,there is rly nothing you can do but quit and hope more ppl will do the same and they wil open their eyes when they won't get their payment at the end of the month.

[Sinister-King]

Wheres the confusion?

I thought BB_Blackwill handled the mail absolutely fine.

He stated that a bug report was sent to the developers, if they find an issue they'll update the system. Also as mentioned blocking isn't a strategy intended for the game so he cannot compensate for your loss.

Its worth remembering that you are speaking to support staff, not the developers.

Sounds to me he understood your mail quite clearly :confused:?

[ksinori]

I KNEW I shouldn't have mentioned it was a block general. It seems to confuse players too.

Reason why I did that was, that if the supporter handling my complain DID know just a little about the game, he would have wondered why I would send an attack containing 1M and 193C. He clearly didn't - wondered or knew. The generals task is not important.

I told him what went wrong - I could see nothing on the screen, and my general was "Waiting for orders." Instead he attacked.

I expected to get compensation for the loss - but I got a lot of story-telling instead.
One overworked supporter managed to ruin my experience with TSO.

First the game do strange things - and I am not being helped out by support.

Tell the dev guys, I asked for that, but then you do what - as a supporter?

Handle the business: The customer is always right.

Now it takes a lot more than that compensation before I spend money on the game again. I will NOT support that kind of support.

I am afraid that way to many players are being bullied by support. And do not stand up.

[Eliseu]

2 months ago,they would compensate anyone.Now most of the people i talked to say then haven't heard of anyone that got compensated recently.
So basicaly,we're just reporting bugs hoping they will get fixed and well,BB screwed us over with their bugs but that doesn't matter,we don't get compensated,even more,they say it's our fault.Clearly,a policy change.

[Sinister-King]

Since I misunderstood this thread, I will replace my comment with a mildly funny picture.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dUJdeS8yFnA/T5aMQVCYNPI/AAAAAAAAAX0/mAK2oQIbVq4/s1600/funny+cat+ninja.jpg

[ksinori]

I think the point that the BB was making is that you played parts of the adventure in a way that it was not intended for (by blocking). That may have been a contributing factor to bugging your adventure, causing unknown issues to arise.

WUT? (That sound "Achmed the Dead Terrorist" make.)

Have you ever tried blocking Sinister-King? But you have a theory that the game knows whether an attack is a block or not?
Thank you for a good laugh.

1. I have 3 generals lined up. 2 block (slow guys) and 1 Vet (250 guy).
2. I press attack on the first block general.
3. Nothing happens on the screen - no moving general and no little icon above the camp with "Hey - we got lag."
4. I check the garrison - it says "Waiting for orders".
5. I think: "Oh dear - I must have a weak muscle, and did not press the attack button hard enough."
6. I leave the game as I did not have the time to finsh the adventure anyway.
7. 3 hours later I return to the game - and that general had attacked.

That is the whole and true situation. So it does not matter what that general should do or not do.

Before this evil adventure(Traitors) - I had made 2 more same type, same day - and they worked like a charm.

________

As stated by another contributor to this thread - blocking is ALL that makes an adventure fun.
Where would the challenge be, if an adventure had only 1 solution?

[LadyBarbara]

But please be aware that Blocking is a tactic the community introduced to the game, as blocking was never officially coded in the game you will find you may have all kinds of issues when doing them.
Officially, you need to clear all camps before wanting to reach your final target camp, that's how the game was designed to be. We can guarantee you that If you had followed that principle the issue would not have occurred.

Interestingly on the test server there is a quest to do two adventures - Island of the Pirates and Horseback. The requirement for each is that you lose less than 500 R. This cannot be done other than by using blocks so who is kidding who?

[Sinister-King]

Interestingly on the test server there is a quest to do two adventures - Island of the Pirates and Horseback. The requirement for each is that you lose less than 500 R. This cannot be done other than by using blocks so who is kidding who?

You can complete the adventure with 499 recruits then use militia, soldiers or elites :).

[ksinori]

Sinister-King: Hey forum troll - can you not just move on to another thread and pretend to know it all there? Thank you. (No - you still don't get it.)

LadyBarbara: Nice touch. I am also aware that on the american TSO - they had a competetion for the best guide - and the winner had loads of blocks. *lol*

[Faststriker]

Sinister-king learn to read first of all..

First of all it might be that the intend of the attack was to block, but thats not the issue at hands. The problem is that he sent the gen. out to fight a battle and there was no response from the server at all. The gen. was still at his camp not moving and having a party wtih a lot of wine and food with his men. Then Ksinori decides to turn of the game and leave the computer with the gen. still at camp not moving or being timeglassed or anything like it, so no possibileties to retreat him from the attack or anything. Then the gen. in his drunk mind sets out to have a fight anyway and wupti the troops are dead.

So it in no has nothing to do with it being a block, its a problem with the server not responding at all. They can´t expect people to sit in front of there computer for severel hours to see if an attack is sent out or not. Have never seen a game like this with this huge lag problems, and i´m playing on a lot from some crappy connections without having any real problems in other games exept this one. And at home I have a very fine and stabble connection and I still have lags on the game. Even with nothing at all running at the background.

Besides that, why on earth have more than one gen. if not for sending them out at the same time? If i wanna send out 4 gen´s at the same time to 4 different camps, not for blocks but just to attack and win, then i really should be abble to do that with no problems at all. If there is a problem with that then the programmers should have a slap in the back and get working on fixing it. And on the other side gamers will always find ways to save resources one way or the other, as long as computer games have eksisted they have done exactly that. And any programmer/companig should know this.

Sorry for the bad spelling, hate writting in english. Simply suck at it.

[Jeans78]

I really hate to get personal - here - but it seems to me - that Sinister-King is just as English Royal - as his avator indicates. Stubborn - and mighty - ! You point out - that YOU understand what ksinori means - but the dev's answer still is another? -

BB have a huge problem here - You mess up a game we all have loved to play - and we looked forward to PvP - and higher lvls. - but now I'm not quite sure you can make that - especally when you dont understand this problem.

What do you want from us players to continue to play this game? - the players answer is quite simple and easy - a game that works - and devoplopers that understand the game they develope - so they can fix the errors.

OR is that to much to ask for?

[ksinori]

This thread has nothing to do with blocks - now move on troll - nothing more here to see.

[Tonymcdie]

i think sinister-king has gone to the pub :)

http://insiderlouisville.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/IMG_1500.jpg

[Sinister-King]

i think sinister-king has gone to the pub :)

http://insiderlouisville.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/IMG_1500.jpg

Haha very good ;).

[jbmarg]

As like Ksinori I too have had mega problems with Support.

I sent a ticket the other day to say 103 of my xbows never returned from ,'Outlaws ', I was informed that sometimes it can take over 24 hours to get your troops back, (What a load of tosh)

When I contacted them after 36 hours, I was told that these xbow men were lost in combat, I repeatedly informed them not only were they not lost in combat, but I checked after every battleI never lost any. And in Outlaws you dont lose xbows.

I assured them all 250 were there at the end of the Adv. but ony 147 returned. Again I was told they must have been lost in a battle, but no matter how many times I explained, they were all there at the end, the penny never dropped with them.

It is so frustrating that you spend money on a game, and the game has a glitch, you lose out, and not only that, you are told its your fault.
When it comes to customer service, Support in BB must come so far down the order.

Just recieved another e mail from them, I am now being told if this happens again, I need proof, so I must take snapshots of the game as it progresses, in otherwords they are calling me a liar.

[Killste]

This thread is going to off topic.

Closing this.

Best,

Killste Forum Moderator