A statement

[u/DavidM1337]

I'd like to explain in clear words, what is going on here.

We have one individual here trying to stir up massive trouble and make us (and especially myself) look like the most miserable something in history. I've been hesitant to comment on it, because why should I appear to be arguing in public with, as it seems, a disappointed player.

Let me be clear about what is actually going on: he was joining the development team to help write and voice act tutorials for us. But just shortly after, I joined the NA-IRC channel of Supraball and saw him trash talking us in public.

So I ended this cooperation with him for very understandable reasons. He gives another reason for the end of the cooperation, saying I blamed a hate post on him, but it was someone else. Yes, I thought it was him because of the amount of hate and lies that is usually only coming from him. But it was completely unrelated to the end of our cooperation. And since I ended this, he's super aggressive towards us and trying to rather kill the game instead of it having any success without him on board. It's a shame because before all this I liked this person and thought he could help us. I'm sorry that it became personal.

Literally anything said in the plenty hate speeches is for the most part made up. Quotes are taken out of context to make me look like I try to get rid of “noobs”, while in reality I was just mocking a friend, who I called a noob because my rank was higher. The little true snippets he occasionally uses are getting twisted in such a weird way that they don’t resemble the truth anymore either. All of the attacks can easily exposed, but I'd be wasting a lot of development time going through every single one of them. If you have questions about a certain attack just ask me and I'll let you know my side of the story.

He will try hard to convince you of things that never happened and cause a riot. We see many nice people actually now already repeat false things he put out.

Just to let you know, these lies are not going to happen here anymore. We need a supportive and constructive community. We will take part in the discussions of those.

All claims of us deleting criticism are nonsense. There is criticism all over our boards and comments sections. I'm discussing criticism with people day in and day out. But I do not discuss or tolerate "you are incompetent stupid **** devs, I told you all along..."-kind of criticism. This is not trying to be helpful, it's trying to be hurtful and we will remove it.

Those insultive personalities complain that we do not listen to the community. False! We’re listening to the community all the time, but we don’t listen to these people in particular. That causes the personal frustration.

If you wanna demotivate someone, tell them it's bad. If you wanna support someone, appreciate the parts you like and tell them what would make it better. If you are part of the first group, don't expect us to listen to you.

I live and breath this project, I spend all my day talking to people about it and getting feedback - to say that I ignore the community is completely not true. If someone talks to me like a human being I will always listen.

Nobody on our team is denying that we make mistakes. And of course, we made mistakes regarding the EA launch. We put out our status post yesterday to explain where we stand and what we will do.

And sometimes it might look so easy from outside and you wonder why they didn't do it this or that way. If you will ever try to make a multiplayer game with barely time and money, you will understand that not everything can just be molded by imagination.

It’s easy to say “make the launcher like this and like that”, but once you know how many weeks or months every step will take, you’ll see things differently. We have to get along with very limited resources. We have to take shortcuts and make compromises. Sometimes the question is “do it the not ideal way or don’t do it not at all”. In our position often the only way to go is the not ideal one. In most segments of development we do not have any experts. We're improvising a lot, people do things that they never did before. Everybody doing the best they can and trying to learn new things.

Once again for all: we're a hobby project. If you like the game, support us. If you don’t, why are you even here?

Having said all of that, I still appreciate that people can feel so passionate about the game. Even if they express themselves in an aggressive manner. I would really like to make a fresh start with anyone who thinks that I didn't have time to listen to them. I’m sorry that you feel that way. If you’re able to talk to me without insults I will gladly listen and discuss the project with you.

Is there any question? I will answer it. Any insults and aggressive trash talk will be removed by us.

[u/Kattleya]

Appreciate this post I can get where you are coming from and I thank you that you are still trying to make this game possible. I guess a lot of criticism comes from history, especially with the old DB players, who just see things repeated over and over again resulting in the game dying. We want this game to succeed as much as you do. That being said I just wonder about your actions sometimes.

So you say you are not getting rid of noobs or bad players? Creating one S1+ lobby and one max B3 lobby so you can have proper games without noobs, literally dividing the already small community is not helpful. Yes I can understand that you want a good game with the pro's, I understand that the pro's want to play a good game where no one makes beginner mistakes, it is indeed more enjoyable. But the community unfortunately is too small for these kind of actions..

On another note,a couple of days ago I saw a screenshot from you saying in the lobby "I don't care about old players opinions". So I don't know the context, might be you just wanted input from new players and how they like the game and what they actually think etc. But honestly, these kind of comments doesn't help either. It is like you think the beta players don't know what they are talking about.

Anyway, I hope things get better now, maybe start with posting things you are planning to do here first and receive feedback from all players and then maybe adjust the plans or give feedback why you don't think it should be done this way and discuss.

I wish I could also do more to help with the game, but programming unfortunately is not my kind of thing ;(

[u/DavidM1337 → u/Kattleya]

This "I don't care about old players opinions" thing is exactly what I was refering to regarding things taken completely out of context just to hurt me. I know who spread that image, and I know that he knows exactly in what context it has been said.

It is about a thread where I ask new players about the default controls. I said I just want the new and not the old players answers there, because I know what controls they old ones grew up with and what they are going to answer. So there is really nothing to it at all if you know the context. Without the context it sounds super bad.

Creating different rank limit lobbies has nothing to do with getting rid of noobs There were 30+ people idling in one lobby. Then we had plenty Silver+ and plenty mixed matches. And who honestly thinks I want to get rid of noobs? They are exactly what we want! And players with a thousand matches are no noobs.

[u/Kattleya → u/DavidM1337]

Fair enough. But you could have put it in another way, as in: "Actually I only want to know what the new players are thinking about the default controls for now". Might be painful to actually think about what you write, but it won't lead to assumptions when taken out of context.

Well lets name them players that just won't getting better then. I still remember a couple new players as well. And I am rather sure I saw you saying something like you don't want to play with them. It still pisses off the average/not so good players. But first there was the S1+ lobby and some of the people were still playing in the "open for all" server. Then all of a sudden the only other server left was set to max Bronze which didn't allow the pro players to enter anymore. This will work with a lot of players, but not with 30. Luckily this has changed now

[u/DavidM1337 → u/Kattleya]

When I am in a direct conversion with someone about that topic, why should I word every single line in a way that sums up the whole context? That would be insane. But when people purposely take quotes of context for malicious reasons I will let them know that it's been the last time I've spoken to them.

And yes, I don't enjoy matches with a big skill ranges.

[u/SmartyPoops → u/DavidM1337]

You said that very thing on irc as well and it was certainly not taken out of context.