Bad timing to drop daily gold rolls, + lack of transparency = unhappy players

[Captain_Wizbang]

It's the "holiday season" Steam, Epic games and others are awash with deals & freebies.
Other game companies are capitalizing on a recovering locked down world. Where gpu scalpers all but ruined the hardware side of things.
I for 1 have downloadrd 7 games for a total out of pocket cost of $29.00 (Eldin Ring) all other games were free.
That's right, free.
Granted almost all of them have some sort of paywall., That's ok.
Let's put a value on our own VIP subscription and how SSG is not making new friends.
Up until now, I have paid my monthly or 3X monthly, I love DDO, I gladly support the game. But now with all the sales, I found only 1 with a substantial subsequent additional purchase. And that is for an entire add-on (adventure pack)

Jan 2023 we get a side note for weekly restarts that the daily gold rolls are ending. As mentioned in other threads, that is low blow to the people paying the bills for SSG (ie US)
A little more communication on replacing them would be appropriate. but no. We got nothing from staff.
Like most long term players here, I own almost everything (ty for the free quest code btw)
That being said, I get decent value for my monthly subscription. Even without the daily rolls.

I server hop every day, and have amassed some nifty items, (3 mounts, 4 +8 tomes & a BUNCH of skill tomes) I was hoping to get one toon with enough shinies to make it worthwhile to pay for a transfer. (that ship has sailed now)
So, do I spend $14.95 to get the other game's expansion, or re-up my sub.?
SSG, are we to wait until Feb for next producer's letter with a new perk we won't see until March?
The player base has put up with a lot of negative stuff, but we stand by you.
I won't list the negatives, not my point. Rather I'm leveraging those against retaining me as paying customer.
None of the other games I just downloaded can replace DDO, I know that. That's why we are ALL still here.
Give us a reason to support you in 2023. Bring back the daily gold roll. fix your bugs and get back on discord or here. (enough hiding)

[shores11]

Jan 2023 we get a side note for weekly restarts that the daily gold rolls are ending. As mentioned in other threads, that is low blow to the people paying the bills for SSG (ie US)
A little more communication on replacing them would be appropriate. but no. We got nothing from staff.
Like most long term players here, I own almost everything (ty for the free quest code btw)
That being said, I get decent value for my monthly subscription. Even without the daily rolls.

Is your statement really true? When VIP Daily Gold rolls were announced and put into place it was very well publicized that they would run for 12-months. I call that pretty transparent.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Is your statement really true? When VIP Daily Gold rolls were announced and put into place it was very well publicized that they would run for 12-months. I call that pretty transparent.

yup, my point was how it was left as a side note with weekly restart message. As stated in the other threads, a little reminder (or something) would have been appropriate

[shores11]

yup, my point was how it was left as a side note with weekly restart message. As stated in the other threads, a little reminder (or something) would have been appropriate

My question was entirely rhetorical because your original comment was in fact not true about SSG being transparent. In fact, not a single player VIP or otherwise did not know that the VIP gold rolls would be going away after 12 months, we all knew it. For SSG to put it as a comment in an update is well within their normal operations and I certainly wouldn't call it a side note.

If your bummed that the VIP Daily Gold rolls are going away after the announced/planned 12-months run that is one thing. But why make up negative unreal statements because of it.

[Captain_Wizbang]

My question was entirely rhetorical because your original comment was in fact not true about SSG being transparent. In fact, not a single player VIP or otherwise did not know that the VIP gold rolls would be going away after 12 months, we all knew it. For SSG to put it as a comment in an update is well within their normal operations and I certainly wouldn't call it a side note.

If your bummed that the VIP Daily Gold rolls are going away after the announced/planned 12-months run that is one thing. But why make up negative unreal statements because of it.


what? make up your mind.

FYI, Im not your enemy, no need to pounce on me.

[axel15810]

I see what you're saying ROG. I guess you would've liked an additional heads-up a few weeks ago or something that they still intended to end them after 2022. I am not sure that was really necessary. It had been announced already by SSG that they were ending at the end of 2022. Really no reason to restate that again, would just get SSG more complaints from players. I know some of us were hoping they would extend it beyond 2022 but since they had never changed their intentions on this we all were to just rightfully assume it was ending. And after all, it was considered just a temporary bonus not a permanent ongoing benefit.

[Captain_Wizbang]

I see what you're saying ROG. I guess you would've liked an additional heads-up a few weeks ago or something that they still intended to end them after 2022. I am not sure that was really necessary. It had been announced already by SSG that they were ending at the end of 2022. Really no reason to restate that again, would just get SSG more complaints from players. I know some of us were hoping they would extend it beyond 2022 but since they had never changed their intentions on this we all were to just rightfully assume it was ending. And after all, it was considered just a temporary bonus not a permanent ongoing benefit.

TY Axel. My big point is about value. I just bagged 6 games for nada, knowing I'll have a paywall in almost all of them. Right now, (for me) vip status here is at the worst value ever (again, for me)
Let's face it, DDO has one of the biggest paywalls in the gaming industry. It's the Holiday Season, LOTS of other companies have seasonal perks and giveaways. We got some great store sales, and a vip perk was taken away. like my title says "bad timing".
Maybe SSG just keeps the daily roll active and just won't say anything. :cool:

[Smelt32]

Is your statement really true? When VIP Daily Gold rolls were announced and put into place it was very well publicized that they would run for 12-months. I call that pretty transparent.

Just a small observation..... The daily gold rolls were NEVER publicized to run for 12 months anywhere. And they haven't run for 12 months. They started in March 2022 and have ended 04/01/2023. Which is actually 4 days later that advertised.

I whole heartedly agree with the OP though that a heads up from SSG would have been appreciated. Some of us have lots going on, not all good stuff either, in the real world and forget what you told us 8 or 9 months ago.

SSG really need to appoint a communications officer. I really think that better communication with the players would go a long way to counter the negative vibes that keep coming up on the forums and in game. As DDO has a mature player base, by enlarge, if you communicate with us we will be happier players. Even if that communication is "oops that wasn't supposed to happen! We are working on a fix, I'll let you know how things are going ASAP" or "yeah daily gold rolls are going, but will be replaced next month when we have finished the new reward lists" or " we have suspended the daily gold rolls so that we can implement a new "Giant screaming goat" mount to replace the fast nightmare"

[Martininice]

Completely transparent, that part is false. In lack of new VIP benefits turning it off is not very smart though. A reasonable business would not have ended that benefit before they made up their mind about the future of the sub model.

[rsbrehm]

My question was entirely rhetorical because your original comment was in fact not true about SSG being transparent. In fact, not a single player VIP or otherwise did not know that the VIP gold rolls would be going away after 12 months, we all knew it. For SSG to put it as a comment in an update is well within their normal operations and I certainly wouldn't call it a side note.

If your bummed that the VIP Daily Gold rolls are going away after the announced/planned 12-months run that is one thing. But why make up negative unreal statements because of it.


Because of freedom of speech... and if he is a paying customer then it's their job to produce a product that customer's want. I agree. VIP is barely worth it without the rolls. All things considered, the gold dice rolls were NOT THAT GREAT to begin with.

Thank you,
RS Brehm

[wolfy42]

Most people I know say they are VIP out of loyalty and to support DDO. I really didn't care about gold rolls, they were almost more of a chore than a bonus.

More people that want VIP/Sub the more money they make. There are tons of potential QoL bonuses they can give for being VIP that will affect both new and (the vast majority) old players.

Most of the current ones only affect/help new players, and only for a limited time before spending the money you would on VIP to actually purchase stuff directly doesn't make sense.

I'm honestly glad the gold rolls are gone so maybe they can add something decent instead. I will sub anyway, but yeah, give us something for subbing that actually improves gameplay. I like the suggestion to make Past Lives server based for instance, but only as long as you are subbed.

Few things like that and alot of people will want VIP even if they have not subbed for years.

[noinfo]

My question was entirely rhetorical because your original comment was in fact not true about SSG being transparent. In fact, not a single player VIP or otherwise did not know that the VIP gold rolls would be going away after 12 months, we all knew it. For SSG to put it as a comment in an update is well within their normal operations and I certainly wouldn't call it a side note.

If your bummed that the VIP Daily Gold rolls are going away after the announced/planned 12-months run that is one thing. But why make up negative unreal statements because of it.

Because yet again SSG has delivered on half of what they said they would.

They acknowledged that their VIP was not offering good value for money. At the time they had also reduced its value by giving away features that were covered by vip to free (while this is a good thing it did reduce the value of the VIP subscription)

They then introduced gold rolls for the rest of the year and said they would be looking into increasing value of VIP. Well they have had the better part of a year and we are yet to hear back from them.
There has been a decline in VIP value, this is not through bad things in general, the giving of content away through codes and redesigns was not a bad decision but those who are paying monthly see an extreme drop in value especially when you factor in that expansions are a regular thing now and contribute most of the content delivered.

You can continue to defend them however there is a large number of people dissatisfied with value of it. I will likely be dropping one of my subs as well. In its current state it is not worth it. From a simple respectful way of dealing with their customer base, something they seem to be getting worse at, holding out until they have something to discuss or release or to time after a producer letter would have been a far better decision.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Because yet again SSG has delivered on half of what they said they would.

They acknowledged that their VIP was not offering good value for money. At the time they had also reduced its value by giving away features that were covered by vip to free (while this is a good thing it did reduce the value of the VIP subscription)

They then introduced gold rolls for the rest of the year and said they would be looking into increasing value of VIP. Well they have had the better part of a year and we are yet to hear back from them.
There has been a decline in VIP value, this is not through bad things in general, the giving of content away through codes and redesigns was not a bad decision but those who are paying monthly see an extreme drop in value especially when you factor in that expansions are a regular thing now and contribute most of the content delivered.

You can continue to defend them however there is a large number of people dissatisfied with value of it. I will likely be dropping one of my subs as well. In its current state it is not worth it. From a simple respectful way of dealing with their customer base, something they seem to be getting worse at, holding out until they have something to discuss or release or to time after a producer letter would have been a far better decision.


5 threads, lots of posters and here we are. one year later and not a word from SSG. Like I said in the OP, are we to wait until Feb 23' for a letter, then another month to actually see the change.

SSG you're compounding the problem by not answering any of these complaints.

[boldarblood]

Because of freedom of speech...


Not how freedom of speech works, explain how Congress is involved.

[Seph1roth5]

I don't care that the ending of daily rolls was a blip in the downtime notice, because like many people pointed out, we all knew it would only last through the end of 2022.

What I do think is ridiculous is that they let all those months pass without having SOMEthing to replace it. Since the whole reason for daily dice was because they wanted to improve vip bonuses.

[LightBear]

When Cordo started streaming again he was asked about the gold rolls and even though his answers were as vague as usual, he did state that he did not expect them to continue and then some mumbo jumbo about that they might or not.

So, yeah. OP if a brief mention on forehand was what you were expecting. It is out there somewhere.

[Xgya]

I don't get the issue.
They said they'd do it for 2022.
They did it for 2022.

Great. This proves they kept their promise.

They could have kept it longer without breaking that promise, but they're not exactly slighting any players by doing exactly what they said they'd do.

I agree it was bad company policy to remove the thing they said was put in place as part of a compensation for VIP being undervalued before adding whatever they intend to add to make up for it.

As for what I think would make sense to add...
A good start would be giving VIPs access to expansion quests. Over 60% of all quests released by SSG are hidden behind an expansion. While that's not the case for most of the pre-SSG content, to which VIP still grants access, it's not a very good direction to see the company go in.
Originally, VIP granted access to all content. Period. That's what VIP meant - you get access to the full game's content and only have to pay when you want specific consumables or cosmetics from the store.

[Kelledren]

Because yet again SSG has delivered on half of what they said they would.

They acknowledged that their VIP was not offering good value for money. At the time they had also reduced its value by giving away features that were covered by vip to free (while this is a good thing it did reduce the value of the VIP subscription)

They then introduced gold rolls for the rest of the year and said they would be looking into increasing value of VIP. Well they have had the better part of a year and we are yet to hear back from them.
There has been a decline in VIP value, this is not through bad things in general, the giving of content away through codes and redesigns was not a bad decision but those who are paying monthly see an extreme drop in value especially when you factor in that expansions are a regular thing now and contribute most of the content delivered.

You can continue to defend them however there is a large number of people dissatisfied with value of it. I will likely be dropping one of my subs as well. In its current state it is not worth it. From a simple respectful way of dealing with their customer base, something they seem to be getting worse at, holding out until they have something to discuss or release or to time after a producer letter would have been a far better decision.

100% agree with everything stated here. It was no surprise they were discontinuing daily gold rolls, but the failure was all the talk from Tolero when she first signed on about improving VIP value has led to nothing. The gold rolls where kind of a mea culpa, we are working on it, but have not seen anything since. In fact messaging has been fairly non-existent outside of Cordo’s vague weekly messages. The only message I really got from those recently were that gold rolls were going away.

I had hoped with the promotion of Tolero the messaging and communication (SSGs biggest issue by far) would get better, but surprisingly it seems to have really gotten worse somehow.

[Avieendha]

so, what are we really getting for VIP status in DDO? I was disappointed went the gold rolls went away. Seems like we should cancel in mass to show them and push them to make it worthwhile to be a VIP.

just my 2 cents

[Ereshkigal]

So, let's say SSG has a plan to add more value to the VIP program.

Why would they cut the gold rolls out and not add anything?

Probably because they want to see how many people actually unsub, to see if the daily gold rolls were actually boosting subscribers or not. There's no way to get better data on that statistic than this.

So, give it some time. Wait and see. If they're doing this, they're going to wait a specific amount of time, then look at the data and allow it to influence their ultimate decision on what they will do about VIP.


Myself, I'm happy with VIP as is, so I won't be unsubbing.

[Loromir]

I see what you're saying ROG. I guess you would've liked an additional heads-up a few weeks ago or something that they still intended to end them after 2022. I am not sure that was really necessary. It had been announced already by SSG that they were ending at the end of 2022. Really no reason to restate that again, would just get SSG more complaints from players. I know some of us were hoping they would extend it beyond 2022 but since they had never changed their intentions on this we all were to just rightfully assume it was ending. And after all, it was considered just a temporary bonus not a permanent ongoing benefit.

I for one am not necessarily upset about the lack of a heads up. I was expecting gold rolls to go away at some time. My issue is "they promised" some new shinies for VIP...some added value as gold rolls was just a stop gap. They had 1 year to figure things out....but...crickets!!!!

I seriously doubt they gave it much more than a second thought since last year. It was more a case of "kick the can down the road" scenario IMO.

People are justified in their frustration.

[MangyD]

First time ever I subscribed to VIP when the daily Gold Rolls became available. I also knew they were temporary, until they figured out what to give to VIPs as SSG realised/enough complaints, that they needed to do more.

I have unsubscribed, got all the packs on FTP or will buy those with points until I see a reason to go back to VIP - not that gold rolls really gave me something 'yay', mostly outfits and the little bit of XP was interesting. But, it did get me to log in every day, just for the roll, maybe it kept me playing... maybe not, difficult to say.

I do like the game and will still play. Right now, I don't need VIP.

[axel15810]

My issue is "they promised" some new shinies for VIP...some added value as gold rolls was just a stop gap.


Did they actually "promise" though? I don't think they have "promised" anything additional in 2023 beyond the gold rolls ending. They have made vague general statements like this one from Cordovan this week that they want to do more. But that's not a promise of any additional future benefit.

"The end of the Gold Rolls with the end of 2022 is expected and in-line with our previous messaging. We know you enjoyed this benefit for the past year, and we remain committed to making sure our VIP benefits remain great. We're always looking for ways to add value to our VIP benefit and once we have more to share we will let you know."

https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/536358-Downtime-Notice-Wednesday-January-4th-9-00-AM-12-00-PM-Eastern-(-5-GMT)/page2#post6561144

I agree it's a bad look though for SSG to let the gold rolls lapse without anything having been announced waiting in the wings. But I don't think it's right to say they promised something and then didn't do it. Unless I'm forgetting something or missed an SSG statement to the contrary. If that's the case then please correct me.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Did they actually "promise" though? I don't think they have "promised" anything additional in 2023 beyond the gold rolls ending. They have made vague general statements like this one from Cordovan this week that they want to do more. But that's not a promise of any additional future benefit.

"The end of the Gold Rolls with the end of 2022 is expected and in-line with our previous messaging. We know you enjoyed this benefit for the past year, and we remain committed to making sure our VIP benefits remain great. We're always looking for ways to add value to our VIP benefit and once we have more to share we will let you know."

https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/536358-Downtime-Notice-Wednesday-January-4th-9-00-AM-12-00-PM-Eastern-(-5-GMT)/page2#post6561144

I agree it's a bad look though for SSG to let the gold rolls lapse without anything having been announced waiting in the wings. But I don't think it's right to say they promised something and then didn't do it. Unless I'm forgetting something or missed an SSG statement to the contrary. If that's the case then please correct me.

Severlin's last video letter, he did say they are going to do something. Then came the daily rolls, Then Tolero said they are going to "something"
Now in DDO nomenclature that's as good as a promise. :cool::rolleyes::p:cool:

[thegreatcthulhu]

I see both sides of this, meaning I get where you're coming from ROG.

In his defense, Cordovan stuck to his guns, and he was quick to point out that this was NOT anything they hid. I clearly remember that the subscriber sign-up page had the little footnote saying the daily gold roles was a benefit for only 2022.

However, as you said, it would have been a lot more user friendly for people such as yourself (all of our situations are different) if he gave a sooner reminder. I think a lot of people do not pay super close attention to all of the details when they sign up for VIP and/or remember all the small text. I know I don't 100% of the time.

[amessi1]

Not a fan of the gold rolls, too much junk.

What I really want is happy and engaged players, b/c that means easier grouping for me and more time dungeon crawling. For those paying extra, for whatever reason, they should feel the value received is worth the price paid.

For many the gold rolls made a significant value proposition for VIP. So the real damage here is perception, and perception can largely be influenced by communication. So say the communication from DDO was targeted towards the VIP value and not the ending of the promotion...something like: "We're ending the promotional gold rolls for VIP as scheduled, but we have made some concrete steps towards increasing value for VIPs and will be rolling that out soon, we think you'll love the new direction, but give us a few more weeks to implement."

My guess is the design team is showing up and building new game, though building something like this means unearthing unknown problems and then adjusting goals based on new hurdles. Meaning, even if you have a brilliant communicator leading the helm at DDO, you still need an equally brilliant planner that could give definitive goals to the communicator.

Having said all that, I don't think the VIP value is justified presently & threads like this are a way for the player base to provide feedback...so good on you all!

[Laxxis]

I don't know. If that's the biggest problem you got going on in life, you're doing alright.

[Epicsoul]

Did they actually "promise" though?

You've not been paying attention. When Tolero was promoted to Producer, revamping VIP was a huge talking point for her.

[Bunker]

Severlin's last video letter, he did say they are going to do something. Then came the daily rolls, Then Tolero said they are going to "something"
Now in DDO nomenclature that's as good as a promise. :cool::rolleyes::p:cool:

"Ha-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia,” but only slightly less well known is this......"

".......Never put SSG and promise in the same sentence."

https://substrakt-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/2018/06/16123206/classic-blunder.gif

[Eantarus]

You've not been paying attention. When Tolero was promoted to Producer, revamping VIP was a huge talking point for her.

And then she did absolutely nothing. Good show, there.