@AMT I’ve spoken to Sirrian, who is checking the forums from home, but not posting. As he isn’t posting he hasn’t been logging into his account, as it isn’t necessary. So yes, Sirrian has been frequenting the forums, but won’t have popped up in the Dev Tracker because he isn’t logging in.
For posterity, I have asked him to log in now, and he has done so. <3
I do login everyday, and you can even see that there. 
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with that point, as I am here as often as I can be. (Sickness aside.)
Goldpheonix can also be seen logging in two hours prior, and he quietly reads the forums very frequently. That is already two regular visitors, outside of Kafka. I don’t see any contradiction in what she has said, as yes, we have been sick, and yes, a dev will regularly frequent this forum.
Not all of our developers are on the forums regularly, and nor should they be. They have other responsibilities, which is why we have a few people that gather data and feedback for them to save time and free up their mental load. It isn’t just the time spent on the forums that needs to be considered, there are also emotional side effects too. At times the forums can be very heated and taxing, and extra load on certain developers who need to focus their attentions at a higher level is never a good idea. That’s why we have a community and support team. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that expecting all of our developers to log in frequently is reasonable. It is fine if you feel otherwise, everyone has different opinions and expectations.
In regards to the dev tracker, this has not been purposefully removed. If we get some extra time I’ll see if one of our team can have a quick look into it.
Kylenator hit it on the head basically.
I have so much I want to say but I’m not going to or can’t, because it’s not professional and let’s be real this is not about me, despite the personal insults I receive on the daily - it is never about ME personally. So I’ll keep this short:
I am sad we can’t have in depth discussions about Gems of War without someone pulling out the personal insults - whether they’re outright swearing and threatening or down to the 100 snarky subtle jabs (death by 1,000 cuts). Honestly it’s the death by 1,000 cuts that get me as the ones who threaten and swear are easy to dismiss as completely having lost the plot and not acting like a rational human being any more. I say one thing and everyone notices, but they suddenly have amnesia about the 20 posts before mine with the jabs and insults that got me to that place
I’m sorry for any time I snap back and I promise I’m working on stepping away when I feel like someone got under my skin instead of responding. It is harder having been home for like 6 months now as well with ever tightening restrictions - it is affecting me, it is affecting everyone.
This isn’t my first rodeo, I know better, and I am knowledgeable about the game despite what some people say - we just can’t sit down long enough in a civil conversation for me to feel like I can prove it to you. Of course I’ll make mistakes or miss things sometimes, and I want you to call it out when I do but explain it to me and I’ll get it! I’m a player too! and we can disagree on points and I can still understand and pass your feedback on - if we all agreed it would make for a boring conversation and the first solution to any problem usually isn’t the best one.
If we could all work on acting more like we’re on the same team that would be my dream goal right there. I’m one of your player reps in house, I speak for you in house and I pass info from the Devs to you, this is a 2 way street and I want to do a good job for you all - so can we work a bit more on that? Can we all just be a bit kinder to one another? I’m the messenger. Don’t shoot the messenger lol.
We took the appropriate action for that forum user too, but the action taken is based on which rules were broken, how badly and your history of warnings and rule breaking.
That’s all I’m going to say about that particular incident.
Didn’t you speak to Sirrian directly about your grievances with me? I know some forum user did, and he gave them his response directly. So it was addressed.
It does feel like you’re on a witch hunt with me AMT.
Chiming in to say that we can’t comment on everything, and that if we obviously are not repsonding to something it is likely because we can’t.
We used to banter a lot on these forums, but perhaps it is time to stop. I’ll hold a meeting on our side to discuss this. In the past, the banter was all in good fun, but it seems like this levity and back and forth with us is no longer appreciated. As such, I will be recommending that we stop doing it, and only give you factual information without excess personality when it is appropriate and we can. You will still be able to have access to us as more rounded representations of ourselves and the company on our live stream, where there is more nuance and context so things aren’t willfully misinterpretted as easily.
It will be less personal, and there will likely be a little less contact with us, but based on the current posts and environment in this forums I feel like this is the best way forward.
No, there are no death threats here. But we do get them.
Unfortunately, I am observing a changing trend over time. I am not having a gut reaction to the last few posts in this thread, and am looking at a change in behaviour and noticing patterns that have been forming for quite some time.
My priority is supplying information to you all, advocating for your wants as needs as necessary and appropriate, whilst ALSO taking care of the mental health and general well being of our developers.
As such, what I wrote above is what I believe is the best way forward.
We err on the side of caution with bans, and typically act faster when players harass each other, than when they harass us.
Banning looks easy from the outside, but it is anything but easy, I assure you. It causes a lot of negative sentiment and often results in us being harassed further.
Yao Guai, Diviner, Tuliao, insert yellow or green damage dealing weapon of your choice - solid team.
I’ve been using it in World Event. I like it with Trickster’s Shot if you have it. Diviner and Tuliao keep the team full on mana while Yao Guai and your Hero take care of the rest.
Plz don’t project onto Devs if you can’t think of a good team, maybe just ask for team advice next time. Always happy to share my builds.
Community ninja here to say that it is a matter of RNG. I don’t believe that the liklihood of getting the Imperial Deed offer will change, and I’m sorry that this isn’t the news you want to hear.
It is rare and down to RNG, much like the way getting a Legendary or Mythic troop is.
I just want to debunk one conspiracy theory, and say that our programmers were working on this issue in the morning of our work day, so they weren’t working outside of their usual hours.
I cannot comment on much else, which I’m sure isn’t a surprise. It is sensitive internal information which is why I haven’t commented on it before, and won’t do so in the future. (Just so you know I’ve read the comments here, but won’t be discussing the finer points with you all.)
What I can say is that I have been in talks with our higher ups about job roles and repsonsibilities, and mentioned that in the future we would benefit greatly from more staff on the community and support side. I don’t know if and when this would happen, but I have had discussions regarding the possibility.
I can also say that I doubt we will ever have 24/7 support, as our company size cannot justify it. Very few companies have it, and those that do are significantly bigger than IP2.
I just want to add that I’m a writer, and in my own work I miss typos. It happens when you look at text for an extended period of time. Should we be looking more closely into spell wording? Absolutely, and I’ve brought this up with the team periodically. However, typos and grammatical errors can escape a few pairs of eyes, and it isn’t an unknown occurance. (For example, a typo has occassionally released in a questline, and typically me and Steve both pass our eyes over them.)
I’m someone who opens my mouth before my brain has finished processing and it’s the same with posting to the forums, I edit as my brain keeps processing 
One post I can answer without any assistance from the team.
The other I have to poke someone else and wait for an answer 
Just an FYI as you may have missed it - I had to moderate that thread as there was a sexist and inappropriate “adult” comment. I replied to nip it in the bud in case anyone thought of continuing down that path so I wouldn’t have to come in there like the police warning everyone later.
Sometimes re-steering the conversation is all it takes to stop a situation from escalating and I would much prefer to do that than to come down with a ban hammer later if the whole situation was so easily avoidable.
We shall see if it works.
Also worth noting is that we’ve already replied to this feedback but not for awhile - I have the confirmation that as a company we do care about this, so it’s a rare instance I can share a solid stance on feedback. We normally can’t promise things for game features until we get the go ahead to announce it, which takes a long time.
This was super easy to reply to.
Heyo!
Just a note to this, Community guidelines and practices are important, as mentioned repeatedly, making sure and maintaining these community spaces are safe and respectful for anyone within it is among the highest priority as Support and Community Managers.
This is also something I have personally been working on for an extensive period of time because any tasks that have come up that I or CX are responsible for, such as reporting issues and bugs, would have been addressed immediately before progressing with updating these guidelines.
Could understand some frustrations if members of Support/CX could personally fix bugs or make changes to the game itself, but that is not something we are responsible for.
If you are trying to be respectful you’re not going to have any problems, which has always been the case.
I think the only actual change other than wording and structure of the guidelines is we’ve now explicitly mentioned no talking about religion or politics.
Other than that it’s mostly the same as before, no insults, no swearing, no hate speech, if someone wants those things, the Gems of War community forum is not the place for them. Almost no game forum is the place for that type of person.
If the line is unclear for you and you cross it you’ll be asked to stop, that’s all, it most likely would end there - we’d much prefer everyone just got on than having to resort to banning people. Being asked to stop doesn’t harm anyone in anyway - I’m sure everyone at some point in their lives has been part of a conversation where someone was asked to drop a topic or change topics offline as well. If you continue after that you’ll be banned, at that point we had tried to give you a nudge in the right direction and tried to talk about it and the behaviour wasn’t changed so we have to do something to stop it. Offline if someone continues with unwanted behaviour, the people they’re talking to or around will either leave or tell the person who was asked to stop to leave. It’s rare people just tolerate unwanted behaviour in any setting.
Bans also aren’t personal - they’re a way to make the space for someone to take a breather, get some fresh air and calm down before coming back to the community to participate with a clear head again - if simply talking to them didn’t work in the first place.
If someone comes in with threats, excessive swearing and hate speech they may be banned without warning - no one wants that in our community and we’re not giving that behaviour space here. Most businesses and communities do kick people out for that behaviour. I don’t think this is what you’re talking about though as none of you are this type of person.
If you are banned for something and feel your ban is unfair you can contact support and talk to a manager. If you have an experience where the more senior member of staff agrees with the action taken then it is what it is and you should probably review your behaviour and how it affects the people around you or whether the Gems of War community aligns with your values in a way that makes you feel comfortable, if you don’t share those values then maybe this also isn’t the right place for you.
We get tonnes of messages every day, some happy, some angry, people agreeing with each other and in passionate debates. We don’t generally warn or ban many people at all. Most people complaining or venting or raging don’t have any run ins with staff, because they’re able to communicate how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking without resorting to antisocial behaviour even when they’re angry or frustrated or upset.
Most people will literally not run into these problems as most people in the community are totally normal, respectful people who are just here to engage over the game they enjoy and talk about that.
I’ve deleted the post because it’s a repost of the thing that broke forum rules and caused the last suspension.
To be clear - providing feedback about policies, procedures and about communication etc is fine in the feedback section.
Calling out specific forum users (which includes specific staff members) is against the rules and always has been against the rules. This has not changed. We’ve spoken about it at length in the past.
Basically if your feedback is about a problem it’s ok. The second it becomes about a person you’re breaking forum rules.
If you have an issue with a specific staff member, contact support and a manager will review your complaint. This is something I have also repeatedly communicated over the years both publicly on the forum and privately and directly with users. This is the only appropriate channel to make such complaints.
We have different levels of oversight on support as with all our teams so multiple people handle it.
As with any job staff have supervisors.
It rarely escalates but it has in the past and if those users are around they could atest to having spoken to my manager as well.
Then the correct way to report it is by contacting support privately where their manager can address the complaint, not by blasting it in a public forum where the rules state call outs aren’t allowed.
Oh yeah for non-staff members the way to go is to use the flagging system - there’s a flag button at the bottom of every post if you click the ‘…’. Then staff get a big red blip on their screen that something needs attention, also if enough community members flag something, the community “self-moderates” ie. the community can hide posts that break forum guidelines.
Hello everyone 
I am officially closing this thread as its contents and purpose are inherently aggressive and more often than not breaking the community guidelines, (Eg. talking about bans) and not contributing in a positive manner to this forum or game’s overall health.
Some quick reminders:
If any new threads appear that are similar in nature and or also go against our community guidelines, they too will be closed per normal procedure.
We do welcome any positive further feedback or constructive criticism on the community guidelines, ban appeals and or how warnings are applied which can all be directed to the CX & Management team via Support Tickets.
I would also like to reiterate that moderation decisions such as warnings, bans, post deletions and thread locking are reviewed by a neutral third party consisting of either other members of the CX Team and or a manager/supervisor/higher-up.
TLDR: Please keep threads/discussions civil, it helps us help you faster.
Community Guidelines:
Community Guidelines - Official News - Gems of War | Forums
Support Tickets:
Gems of War Support (zendesk.com)
Thank you
Bramble
devtrackers.gg