Before you jump to conclusions - please understand this is not a hate post or a "I demand blah blah blah" - "name and shame" - move along - not here. Also not sure if this is the correct board or not - its just a general "the heck and why?" post.

 

I'm a relatively new player who is genuinely trying do a good thing and educate newbies/other guild members on something that could potentially harm them or make things worse - that being the nefarious "auto squelch-er" on newbie worlds.

 

A few days ago I was hanging around on Tython recruiting for my guild.

Id post an ad every 5-10 mins - spaced out enough that no one would really complain - I would see others posting far quicker than me - trolling/other things. Aside from the teasing of my guild name - no one really complained..at least in the open.

 

A newbie walked by and asked what an another player was using for a lightsaber.

I went and grabbed the name and "linked" in general chat so they could see what it was called.

 

I was suddenly unable to talk in general chat.

Some googling after poking around revealed there's an AI system of sorts that spots things like this and mutes players. Anti-RMT/spam mechanism to protect newbies... I get that. Totally makes sense.

 

Except I was only answering some newbie's question like a hapless - evidently fool I am.

 

So I open a ticket as a subscriber.

I detail what happened - asking to be educated and for information on what happened.

And if possible - reverse the issue.

 

Now it was rather late - so I logged off for the day.

I log back in a day later and find the ticket was replied then summarily closed.

The response was a canned response and no care or attention to my various questions was given.

 

Strike 1 - ignoring questions and not reading.

 

I was unable to reopen the ticket to make a polite reply asking for clarification.

 

I opened a new ticket and basically very politely complained as such.

Only to get a blank ticket in response and an auto close.

 

Strike 2 - a blank answer with zero - nada - zip.

 

I go to my email and reply to that in hopes I could reach an agent who was not a drone but could stop and consider the situation and pay me the kindness of informing me.

 

I point out that as an executive officer of a rather good sized guild - Id like to ensure we don't breach any policies or invoke this system accidentally - thinking that linking a market item was to blame at best.

 

I get a response - but none of which answered my obvious questions pointing out that people are abusing the system reporting other guilds in retaliation for advertisements.

 

I asked for further clarification to confirm this is what happened.

No response - nothing.

 

Strike 3 - again - ignoring and literally making the issue worse - assumptions.

 

 

I can get people are busy - staff may be short - I can get that you guys get tons of garbage from players with innocuous responses that burn you out and make you roll your eyes out of your head.

 

I've done customer service work myself - I'm no stranger to that world. As an IT Professional I deal with communications every day. Albeit a far higher standard of conduct than what we have here.

 

There is a right way to do things...and a wrong way.

Frankly if I was coaching or a manager - I'd have a long chat about quality of treatment of your customer.

No I'm not asking for "snowflake" status - I'm asking to be treated like a human being with a question needing a simple - quick answer. With the respect of being understood and heard.

 

I couldn't even get a "Yes" or a "No"

 

I was genuinely asking for clear and concise information on what the "Barriers" are and what we should not do.

 

Did linking a item cause it?

Did I spam too fast?

How long does this last? What's the timetable on offenses? Etc.

 

Now I'm forced to remove all recruitment efforts from these newbie planets at the risk of innocent players (or not so innocent - as I'm away people do things they shouldn't) to avoid the risk of getting muted.

 

As I'd like to be able to help newbies out without being forced to PM/Group chat.

 

No one really has a clear indication of what the "rules" are concerning newbie worlds. Other than frustration on the lack of information.

 

I would think that educating a large group of people on "please don't do this" would alleviate the stress in preventing abuse.

 

I understand this game is dated - being STILL 32 bit platform - archaic interface - old tech to be sure.

I came from FFXIV - where their GM's pretty much do not give a damn anymore and ignore common sense.

 

I was under the impression this game in spite of the above mentioned situation - was at least given some semblance of quality care concerning that work is still being done on it and content being developed.

 

Hopeful noob? Perhaps - but as someone whose dropped a good chunk of change on this game for the benefit of other players to share the fun of Star Wars - I'd like to think think that customer service would at least bluntly be honest and say "Sorry we cant tell you that - and here's what we got" as opposed to no answer/canned letters that have nothing to do with what was going on/no evidence no information.

 

Even a "please do not advertise on newbie worlds or link market items" would have been the perfect answer. No argument from me - yes sir - by your command.

 

I didn't even get that.

 

No I'm not posting what was said or who or anything like that - I'm not going to play that card.

Admins can look my info up and figure it out from there.

 

But I am going to say that if it wasn't for my love of Star Wars - I'd quit and tell others to leave.

 

First sign of trouble - is when GM's/CS ignore you outright and treat you like a generic player when its a bit obvious "I'm not generic"

 

I hope this isn't a trend of things to come for the foreseeable future.

It would be nice to have a clear cut indication of whats going on - what I did wrong - and what I should not do.

 

All I got was fuzzy logic/nebulous "this is a thing and its doing this and players are abusing it"

 

Which is literally no help at all and causing more confusion than not.

 

Now if CS wants to reach out to me and sit down and have a clear and frank chat over what I did wrong...ill gladly bend over and take my spanking/slap on the wrist and go about my day.

 

"Just the facts please" as the saying goes.

 

I'm just trying to make sure that others do not make the same mistake I did...for the betterment of the community we're growing in my guild.

 

For those who survived this little rant - thanks for your patience.

I came here not expecting anything - but the hope that someone from the GMs/CS group sees this and goes "hmm...."

 

And as for those reading this - don't link items on newbie worlds - and I suggest not recruiting either.

Because you'll lose your ability to talk in general chat. Call this a PSA.

 

No offense intended - just pure honesty and sheer disappointment.

<hops off soap box and walks off with sabres in hand>

EricMusco (Community Manager) has in the past asked that we send him details (ticket numbers, sample text, etc.) of "nonsense" responses so that he can investigate etc. Send them by forum private message, of course.

Yeah, I mirror this experience.

 

I just came back to the game after 6 years of not playing. I quit shortly after KotFE ended, for obvious reasons, and now that I came back I found that on several characters that were going through the story, their romances had been wiped.

 

Sent a ticket in saying that despite having initiated romances before and not missing any flirt options or whatnot, some of my characters had their romances erased due to a bug that has apparently been known about and gone unfixed for the past six years. Wanted to see if support could manually set some story flags, or anything of the sort.

 

What I got back was downright insulting. Support told me that, and I quote, "The game is working as intended and there are absolutely no issues with companion romance", and that "it completely relies on the decisions you make" As well, they insisted that they couldn't fix the flags because it might "break the story".

 

Excuse me? were they trying to gaslight me that this bug does not exist? are they saying that it is my fault that the flags got reset because I took a break? This game's customer service is an absolute *********** joke. Even their reason for not helping fix the issue doesn't hold up, since I've learned that they one even introduced an NPC droid that you could interact with that actually fixed romance flags if you encountered this kind of bug before!

 

Talk about spitting in my face, for having the gall to bother trying their game again six years after I quit. You've more patience than me though, as after receiving that response I stopped trying.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Rankansen

EricMusco (Community Manager) has in the past asked that we send him details (ticket numbers, sample text, etc.) of "nonsense" responses so that he can investigate etc. Send them by forum private message, of course.

 

This still a thing today or something of the past? I'd hate to "Cold pm" him out of the blue.

Yeah, I mirror this experience.

 

I just came back to the game after 6 years of not playing. I quit shortly after KotFE ended, for obvious reasons, and now that I came back I found that on several characters that were going through the story, their romances had been wiped.

 

Sent a ticket in saying that despite having initiated romances before and not missing any flirt options or whatnot, some of my characters had their romances erased due to a bug that has apparently been known about and gone unfixed for the past six years. Wanted to see if support could manually set some story flags, or anything of the sort.

 

What I got back was downright insulting. Support told me that, and I quote, "The game is working as intended and there are absolutely no issues with companion romance", and that "it completely relies on the decisions you make" As well, they insisted that they couldn't fix the flags because it might "break the story".

 

Excuse me? were they trying to gaslight me that this bug does not exist? are they saying that it is my fault that the flags got reset because I took a break? This game's customer service is an absolute *********** joke. Even their reason for not helping fix the issue doesn't hold up, since I've learned that they one even introduced an NPC droid that you could interact with that actually fixed romance flags if you encountered this kind of bug before!

 

Talk about spitting in my face, for having the gall to bother trying their game again six years after I quit. You've more patience than me though, as after receiving that response I stopped trying.

 

Nothing hurts more than CS support literally ignoring you.

 

Frankly it would have better if they told you its a known issue and there's nothing they can do about it..at least its the truth...even if its a crappy one.

 

I had a stint for 3-4 years for a major gaming company (not going to say here for obvious reasons) - was told all kinds of ridiculous crud about you can say this can't say this - who ever thought it was "inappropriate" to not be honest at the risk of making them look bad - should be shot in the you know what. - And we proved it - we had a "renegade" group who would intentionally "Break the rules" - and we had the highest "satisfaction score" in the whole damn division.

 

Corporate mantra is to milk people for all its worth and damn the consequences and no care about next year or the year past that. If they cared about what I'd be doing next year - they would have given you and me the respect deserved of a simple and straightforward answer.

 

Prob some idiot marketing dude who has no clue what the tech/product is and would rather milk for profits.

I'm willing to bet good money their own execs don't even look at these boards.

 

If you got a problem with your product...be honest....be upfront...even if you can't do jack ####. You'll be respected for it...and likely retain loyalty for it.

Where every other company - literally gives no ####s and just wants your money.

Long gone is the day of quality support and care sadly.

I hope they do read this - if anything they will start cleaning up in time for the new expansion.

 

One can hope.

 

But alas....if it weren't for my love of Star Wars - I'd leave in spite of this. I have zero tolerance for incompetence.

Even then - my guild - a community of people who are decent folk - not going to ditch them for that.

So I shall eat this bitter pill and try to enjoy this game....for now.

Edited October 25, 2021 by kage_goomba

This still a thing today or something of the past? I'd hate to "Cold pm" him out of the blue.

I haven't seen a "OK, thanks, you can stop sending these reports" thing, so I'd guess it's still OK. He certainly won't ban you for it.

I've gotten some decent and helpful responses from CS, and they've managed to fix whatever issued I have had, so someone is doing their job there. However it's rare.

 

Usually it's a response to something that has nothing to do with my issue, and they close the ticket so that I will have to start a new one and explain the same thing again. Funny thing is, the second ticket also gets a generic answer that has nothing to do with my issue, and gets closed again, and again, and again. I've often wondered if they have a big hat full of generic answers, and they just pull out a random one to respond to a ticket, because sometimes they make no sense at all. Eventually I might get lucky and get someone who reads my ticket and understand my problem, and even manages to fix it. Once or twice I've been told that it's a known bug and they are tracking it and so on, which is probably not happening, but at least they acknowledge there is an issue.

 

Getting blank responses is just unacceptable. Someone is not doing their job, obviously.

Bioware has in the last year cracked down a lot on rmt and guild recruitment spamming on starter planets, you might think you aren't a part of the problem if you post every few minutes but with 20+ guilds doing so it makes general chat just filled with spam. These features are meant to prevent this and although in this case, it worked both good and bad I doubt Bioware would want to outline EXACTLY how their system work as that could easily be used to exploit it.

 

Hopefully, you have a better experiance with CS in the future, they are usually pretty helpful in the tickets and issues I have raised with them.

Edited October 25, 2021 by RikuvonDrake

I've often wondered if they have a big hat full of generic answers, and they just pull out a random one to respond to a ticket, because sometimes they make no sense at all.

 

Yes, yes they do. It's called a script. This is what happens when they hire clerks. Not saying all of them are that, but it seems to me that customer service in general, not just EAware, but everywhere, is populated by clerks reading scripts. It is what it is. You just have to keep trying until you get someone who knows what they are doing.

2 years ago or so when there was a bug where flagships disappeared we were hit with that as well . I made a ticket and got answer that "to get fs for guild i should go to fleet and buy flagship" and ticket was closed.

After that i crated one more and this person fixed it under 20 mins of me making ticket and they contacted me back to check if all is good.

so i guess depends on who u get on other side :shrug:

Hi Kage_goomba,

 

If you are comfortable doing so, feel free to send me a PM with the details of your exchange and include the details that Steve listed above, and I will assist as best as I can.

 

Jackie

Jackie, thanks for confirming that this sort of problem is still interesting for the Community Management team.

Hi Kage_goomba,

 

If you are comfortable doing so, feel free to send me a PM with the details of your exchange and include the details that Steve listed above, and I will assist as best as I can.

 

Jackie

 

Appreciate that - I will follow up in a bit with details.

Bioware has in the last year cracked down a lot on rmt and guild recruitment spamming on starter planets, you might think you aren't a part of the problem if you post every few minutes but with 20+ guilds doing so it makes general chat just filled with spam. These features are meant to prevent this and although in this case, it worked both good and bad I doubt Bioware would want to outline EXACTLY how their system work as that could easily be used to exploit it.

 

Hopefully, you have a better experiance with CS in the future, they are usually pretty helpful in the tickets and issues I have raised with them.

 

And yet they permit it freely as people where posting every minute to few mins without restraint - note I would post mine every 5 to 10 minutes.

The hypocrisy of this system is staggering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr0xwgqw-BE

 

Language. (South Park)

Yes, yes they do. It's called a script. This is what happens when they hire clerks. Not saying all of them are that, but it seems to me that customer service in general, not just EAware, but everywhere, is populated by clerks reading scripts. It is what it is. You just have to keep trying until you get someone who knows what they are doing.

 

Customer service is a dying art in every industry. Those of us who started as specialist customer service people 30-40 years ago, cringe at what companies define as customer service these days. Good customer service now would have been unacceptable customer service 30 years ago and excellent customer service now would have only passed the average bar back then. So obviously, any average customer on that scale is bad and bad customer service is atrocious.

 

Sadly, my personal experience with Swtor’s in game customer service is so terrible that they may as well have none. Most of the time it would cause less rage if if we got a canned auto reply than letting a human CS rep close off your msg with no reply or them replying with nonsensical rubbish that doesn’t even relate to what you asked. I’ve not had any positive CS interaction in the past 5 years, so I’ve given up trying.

Edited October 26, 2021 by TrixxieTriss

there are many reasons why you could get banned from chat.

the most player won't argue with you, if you are spamming, they just report you.

 

but bioware should include a system, why actions are taken against your account.

this is missing completely.

linking items on the starter planets is a recurring issue, based on the general discussion forum chatter. I think that was the trigger. not the fact that you were spamming or advertising your guild.

 

I don't pretend to know the rhyme or reason for links being bad, but I've seen quite a few posters complain about being muted for linking items. and iirc, it was only on starter planets.

Yeah, I mirror this experience.

 

I just came back to the game after 6 years of not playing. I quit shortly after KotFE ended, for obvious reasons, and now that I came back I found that on several characters that were going through the story, their romances had been wiped.

 

Sent a ticket in saying that despite having initiated romances before and not missing any flirt options or whatnot, some of my characters had their romances erased due to a bug that has apparently been known about and gone unfixed for the past six years. Wanted to see if support could manually set some story flags, or anything of the sort.

 

What I got back was downright insulting. Support told me that, and I quote, "The game is working as intended and there are absolutely no issues with companion romance", and that "it completely relies on the decisions you make" As well, they insisted that they couldn't fix the flags because it might "break the story".

 

Excuse me? were they trying to gaslight me that this bug does not exist? are they saying that it is my fault that the flags got reset because I took a break? This game's customer service is an absolute *********** joke. Even their reason for not helping fix the issue doesn't hold up, since I've learned that they one even introduced an NPC droid that you could interact with that actually fixed romance flags if you encountered this kind of bug before!

 

Talk about spitting in my face, for having the gall to bother trying their game again six years after I quit. You've more patience than me though, as after receiving that response I stopped trying.

 

I quit for nearly a year when CS did that to me! I have one character to romance each of the romanceable companions (minus a couple). Koth was romanced by a dark Warrior. I was very careful to choose every option to keep Koth happy. Ossus messed up a flag and claimed I killed him for stealing the Gravestone.

https://i.imgur.com/VVPjU8v.jpg To make it worse, he didn't show up on the companion retrieval terminal and he was this character's only rank 50 companion.

 

I very clearly explained the problem to CS. He replied that I had to live with my story choices and that companions lost during the story can't be returned. 1. A flag flipping is not MY choice but the opposite of MY choice, it is an OBVIOUS bug. 2. That is what the terminal is for. Assuming he didn't understand the problem, I wrote back and tried to explain it even clearer, screenshot included. His response? Again, I have to live with my story choices, that companions lost during the story can't be retrieved and that "there are no companion bugs". He further threated to ban me from submitting CS help requests if I bothered him again for that issue.

 

Then I noticed starting Ossus also killed my previously spared Arcann, but kept Senya alive. (Sadly newer content counts her as dead, even though she is alive.) Checking to see if I could reclaim Arcann, I found Koth was able to be retrieved again, and interestingly Broonmark could as well. So this character has a dead romanced Koth who never stole the Gravestone, a dead Arcann but an alive Senya who is grateful he spared him, and two versions of Broonmark, both of whom can be used. But there are "no companion bugs'.

 

I would have been fine if he had just said they couldn't fix my bugged character, but refusing to acknowledge that it even was a bug was infuriating! Threatening to ban me from future CS reports was the last straw. (To be clear, I was not abusive in any way shape or form.)

Edited October 27, 2021 by Damask_Rose

there are many reasons why you could get banned from chat.

the most player won't argue with you, if you are spamming, they just report you.

 

but bioware should include a system, why actions are taken against your account.

this is missing completely.

 

To be clear - I wasn't banned - I was squelched.

Banned is an inference of permanence.

linking items on the starter planets is a recurring issue, based on the general discussion forum chatter. I think that was the trigger. not the fact that you were spamming or advertising your guild.

 

I don't pretend to know the rhyme or reason for links being bad, but I've seen quite a few posters complain about being muted for linking items. and iirc, it was only on starter planets.

 

Agreed - I did link my guild - just once - a couple days ago - and it happened again.

While some other nut case was spamming their guild ad-nausium.

There are one or two guilds who are abusing the report spam feature to silence other guilds in chat. Seems to be getting worse the last few weeks. Edited October 27, 2021 by TrixxieTriss

I quit for nearly a year when CS did that to me! I have one character to romance each of the romanceable companions (minus a couple). Koth was romanced by a dark Warrior. I was very careful to choose every option to keep Koth happy. Ossus messed up a flag and claimed I killed him for stealing the Gravestone.

https://i.imgur.com/VVPjU8v.jpg To make it worse, he didn't show up on the companion retrieval terminal and he was this character's only rank 50 companion.

 

I very clearly explained the problem to CS. He replied that I had to live with my story choices and that companions lost during the story can't be returned. 1. A flag flipping is not MY choice but the opposite of MY choice, it is an OBVIOUS bug. 2. That is what the terminal is for. Assuming he didn't understand the problem, I wrote back and tried to explain it even clearer, screenshot included. His response? Again, I have to live with my story choices, that companions lost during the story can't be retrieved and that "there are no companion bugs". He further threated to ban me from submitting CS help requests if I bothered him again for that issue.

 

Then I noticed starting Ossus also killed my previously spared Arcann, but kept Senya alive. (Sadly newer content counts her as dead, even though she is alive.) Checking to see if I could reclaim Arcann, I found Koth was able to be retrieved again, and interestingly Broonmark could as well. So this character has a dead romanced Koth who never stole the Gravestone, a dead Arcann but an alive Senya who is grateful he spared him, and two versions of Broonmark, both of whom can be used. But there are "no companion bugs'.

 

I would have been fine if he had just said they couldn't fix my bugged character, but refusing to acknowledge that it even was a bug was infuriating! Threatening to ban me from future CS reports was the last straw. (To be clear, I was not abusive in any way shape or form.)

 

I ... jfc! at the very least the toons I have that lost their romances can still use those companions, that is absolutely unacceptable treatment.

 

I've been playing MMOs actively for some 20 years now and this is probably the worst excuse for customer service I've ever seen. To compare, GW2's CS has gladly replaced items for me when I've accidentally bound or destroyed them, something I would have never expected most CS to be willing to do, yet they've done it for me multiple times.

 

Swtor's cs, by comparison, feels like they'd rather spit in your face than have a reason stop sitting on their hands.

The CS/CM here have declined a lot since when I started, it's has been a downward slide, but recently has seemed to gone into free fall. The ticket system is a joke, I don't even think they actually look at the tickets, they just put in a script and hope for the best. But the email system seems to be a lot better Support@swtor.com , not saying they can sort out everything, but you can see, it's two different departments, etc. Not sure when BW outsourced CS, but that is when the Sith hit the fan. One of the biggest signs that it's outsourced is the scripts, they are generic, and used for everything, and chances are these 'agents' are based in india. From working in varies CS roles over the years, when dealing with CS myself, I can usually tell what is outsourced, and what's inhouse

After this morning I'd have to say we have it made in the shade.

https://support.na.square-enix.com/faqarticle.php?id=5382&la=1&kid=68216

 

^This went live this morning.

 

TLDR = FFXIV now enforces a penalty system and possible suspension.

 

Example:

If your in a flashpoint and you say "Your doing it wrong" you can be reported and possibly punnished harshly for being respectful/polite.

 

Its causing a firestorm on the SE FFXIV forums.

 

Take away in this little "rabbit trail" - seems this games CS isn't as bad off as I previously thought.

No excuse....but damn....the days of common sense are going right out the window in the name of political correctness and someones "hurt feelings"

 

Yep...I complimented the GM's here.....go figure.

Edited October 27, 2021 by kage_goomba