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What should I do when Support can't help?
tagen
Member Posts: 545 Arc User
It has been 5 months since this problem started (or at least since it had been noticed):
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1256575/psa-ship-slot-coupons-auto-activate
To sum it up, the ship slot coupons purchased in the 10th anniversary legendary bundle (https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11355993-10th-anniversary-legendary-starship-bundles) were auto-consumed at login. There were 5 coupons, 2 slots each and customers who experienced this bug did not get to use those coupons as they wished.
I put in a Support ticket when I learned this had happened to me. I was told that other players had made similar reports, that development would be informed, that a bug report should be made on the forums (https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1256576/bundle-ship-slot-coupons-activate-on-their-own), and that they were "sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused".
I suggested the bug be put in an official announcement to the community as a whole so people could either avoid the issue or at least know what happened to their items. As far as I can tell, there has never been an official mention of the problem in the past 5 months.
After a few days, despite my request to leave the ticket open until the problem could be resolved, the ticket was marked "solved" and I was told to keep an eye on the forums for a resolution.
A month later with still no word on this, I created a follow-up to the support ticket. I was told to "check our website and official forums page from time to time for any news about this" and that "Player Support does not have the ability to fix bugs and we can only forward these reports to the developers". Oh and also, "we truly apologize for the inconvenience the issue has caused you".
That ticket was also closed as "solved".
Three months after the first ticket I put in another follow-up. This time, I was told "only the Development team will be able to address the issue and Customer Support rarely receive updates directly from the developers for reported bug investigations or fixes". But, again, to my knowledge there has never been mention of this problem or any resolution.
On October 9th that ticket was marked "solved" with the message "customer support is no longer able to provide support on this issue".
It has now been another 2 months since then and I am no closer to any resolution. Support is obviously not the place to go for this, it has been put on the forums in both general discussion and bug reporting, I have tried tagging moderators and putting messages on Twitter. Nothing.
The legendary bundle was $200 or $300. The ship slot coupons were a value of about $25. None of that is minor, especially in 2020. I have played STO on and off for years, but have probably played more this past year than in the previous 9 combined. Part of that was getting back in with a few friends and spending more time online, but most of it was a momentary escape from the horrors of 2020. And let me tell you, having this bug happen, then having support basically dismiss it as not their problem? Having zero communication from Cryptic on this? It has been depressing and I really did not need more of that.
So please, if anyone has information on what I should do next to try getting this solved, let me know.
Also, please do not turn this into a thread ranting how bad Cryptic is, or how support always does this. Everyone has had it rough this year and, no mater how true it may be that there are problems in general, right now I want this thread to be more about solutions.
Thank you.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1256575/psa-ship-slot-coupons-auto-activate
To sum it up, the ship slot coupons purchased in the 10th anniversary legendary bundle (https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11355993-10th-anniversary-legendary-starship-bundles) were auto-consumed at login. There were 5 coupons, 2 slots each and customers who experienced this bug did not get to use those coupons as they wished.
I put in a Support ticket when I learned this had happened to me. I was told that other players had made similar reports, that development would be informed, that a bug report should be made on the forums (https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1256576/bundle-ship-slot-coupons-activate-on-their-own), and that they were "sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused".
I suggested the bug be put in an official announcement to the community as a whole so people could either avoid the issue or at least know what happened to their items. As far as I can tell, there has never been an official mention of the problem in the past 5 months.
After a few days, despite my request to leave the ticket open until the problem could be resolved, the ticket was marked "solved" and I was told to keep an eye on the forums for a resolution.
A month later with still no word on this, I created a follow-up to the support ticket. I was told to "check our website and official forums page from time to time for any news about this" and that "Player Support does not have the ability to fix bugs and we can only forward these reports to the developers". Oh and also, "we truly apologize for the inconvenience the issue has caused you".
That ticket was also closed as "solved".
Three months after the first ticket I put in another follow-up. This time, I was told "only the Development team will be able to address the issue and Customer Support rarely receive updates directly from the developers for reported bug investigations or fixes". But, again, to my knowledge there has never been mention of this problem or any resolution.
On October 9th that ticket was marked "solved" with the message "customer support is no longer able to provide support on this issue".
It has now been another 2 months since then and I am no closer to any resolution. Support is obviously not the place to go for this, it has been put on the forums in both general discussion and bug reporting, I have tried tagging moderators and putting messages on Twitter. Nothing.
The legendary bundle was $200 or $300. The ship slot coupons were a value of about $25. None of that is minor, especially in 2020. I have played STO on and off for years, but have probably played more this past year than in the previous 9 combined. Part of that was getting back in with a few friends and spending more time online, but most of it was a momentary escape from the horrors of 2020. And let me tell you, having this bug happen, then having support basically dismiss it as not their problem? Having zero communication from Cryptic on this? It has been depressing and I really did not need more of that.
So please, if anyone has information on what I should do next to try getting this solved, let me know.
Also, please do not turn this into a thread ranting how bad Cryptic is, or how support always does this. Everyone has had it rough this year and, no mater how true it may be that there are problems in general, right now I want this thread to be more about solutions.
Thank you.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Dev's don't respond, on purpose, to tickets and bug reports. Bugs are resolved in a priority order. If it directly affects gameplay )and some would say, cash flow), it has priority. Misapplied slots are not a priority. I know that's not what you want to hear, but that's just the way it is. Needless to say, the Dev's know about the issue.
@darkbladejk is probably your best bet to highlight it to the Dev's.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Well, I was missing the ZEN I spent on those slots that the game decided to use for me.
With regard to that, "misapplied slots" implies I made some kind of mistake I wanted Support to fix. It was not my error and it affected items I bought in the shop. If players start thinking thier purchases can just go poof because of a bug that has not been fixed, that might eventually affect their cash flow, too.
And while I would hope it is the case the devs know about a bug that can do what this one did, I can't say for sure they do because a) nothing was ever mentioned on the forum or any announcements as it being a known issue and b) even if Support sent it along, they admit they have little or no communication in the other direction from the devs, so they can't be sure either.
Thanks for mentioning darkbladejk, though. At least this feels like it has some chance of getting it in front of human eyeballs.
I would not use that particular phrase, but yeah, closing the tickets (especially as "solved") was not making me feel better about the situation. At least with the ticket open I could have convinced myself it was on someone's radar and not just swept under a rug hoping I'd eventually give up.
Thanks! Sent.
Still no reply.
> Happy 6 month anniversary to this problem! *throws confetti*
>
> Still no reply.
It is possible that due to covid the game runs on a skeleton crew of devs and nobody is able to work on this. But in that case there should be an official annoumcement.
You can also try to ping @ambassadorkael#6946 , the community manager. But again, no idea whether he is working on site these days, or at home or at all. I hope this issue gets resolved.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
It does say in the store description that the slots auto-activate on the character that claims the bundle.
It does? If so, that is new and must be their "fix" for the problem.
That was not meant to be the case, as is evidenced by the (original) bundle giving 5 ship slot coupons that unlocked 2 slots each. The coupons did appear in my inventory and stayed there for a time. (I was not maxed out on ships for any of my characters yet, so planned to hold on to the coupons and use them as needed.) It wasn't until later that logging the character in auto-consumed the coupons.
The obvious intent was to distribute those coupons to characters to get the slots rather then just adding all 10 to a single character.
Oh, I understand the delays and staffing issues that were caused by covid. Perfectly reasonable in my mind that it could impact getting fixes into the game. As you say, though, that does not excuse the complete lack of communication on the issue over 6 months. No official announcement, no attempt to refund or replace the items I "lost" from a store bundle.
Truthfully, the loss itself does not bother me near as much as their response (lack of) to it. Why should I have any trust at all that when I spend money in the game I will get the items I buy? Or that, if I don't get those items, someone in the company will help to make it right?
I love the game itself and I think the developers are probably doing more for Star Trek than some of the new shows, but even the slightest bit of support when there is a problem like this seems to be nonexistent.
As long its not a problem with you paying for something, the answer is "We informed the Devs, lolbye"
Hmm...*formulates a plan*
So I put in a ticket saying I'd like to buy something from the store, but I'm having trouble paying for one of the new bundles. Once I have thier attention and they ask for details on what kind of trouble, I say "well, the last time I bought something, the game bugged out and ate it; that was never resolved, so I have trouble believing I should risk the store again."
Think it'll work?
(Kidding, if that wasn't clear. I need to find some humor in all this mess, right?)
People actually abused the Steam Starter Bundle and Steam's refund policy to get it for free, which is why it was taken down from Steam, and eventually repurposed into the Steamrunner bundle in game.
I get the sarcasm, but you kinda gotta be careful with these kinds of jokes. Some might do it, and some might decide to go after you for "breaking forum rules", and won't take "thats a joke lads" as an excuse, even if you lable it as such in said post.
We got all types here. Some a lot more gung ho than others.
Oh Lord, is that ever true!
He threatened legal action unless he got his money back, he got his money back and they banned him. Problem I have is that the perk that was listed was not given... seems Cryptic claims it was removed as an item that was included.. account bank slots... but it's still listed as far I can tell from looking at the webpage for it. If you advertise XYZ and folks buy it... give them XYZ.
While it might be interesting to see what would happen if all the players who had experiences like this with purchases got together, I am not looking to blow up my account just yet. I'm certainly not spending any more on the game until they decide to take some responsibility for broken purchases, though.
I am amazed any company can so blithely get away with ignoring customers with purchase problems. I mean, they have ignored me on other things, too. We never did get an answer on why the account-wide First Contact Day rewards were not actually account-wide. But that was an event reward, not something I bought in the ZEN store. (Although I'd probably be just as upset if I paid to complete the event and then did not get the reward.)
Maybe someone at Cryptic will be able to help me with the one from last year before this one comes out? I mean, that would be nice.
I have a problem with a bug causing the loss of items from a 30,000ZEN bundle, Support says they don't fix bugs so can't help me and Cryptic effectively ignores me for 7 months.
Players have a problem with a bug where they don't get their first group of duty officers on a new recruit, Support responds immediately with compensation.
I am not at all saying the players who missed out on the first group of duty officers should not have gotten help. They should and it is great that they did.
I am asking why the issue I have does not deserve at least some form of help.
As has come up over and over again, I am not and never have asked support to fix the bug.
The duty officer issue has been around a long time. Glitch or bug, whatever it is, Support can't fix that either. But they did remedy the situation by providing a way for those players to buy more duty officers.
Again, I am not saying that should not have been done or that it is not an important issue, but I'm trying to square in my mind how they can help people who had a game bug with a free group of duty officers and yet are, for the better part of a year, completely unable to help me with ship slots I paid for.
As you say, the 7 months is not a good thing. But if the reason it went on this long is that they can see I did get the items before the bug ate them? and they can't do anything other than ask me to post on the forum? That is a major flaw in the process.
If I order a pizza and the delivery person brings it to the house and feeds it to my dog, yes, it can be argued that the pizza was delivered. But I still think they owe me another pizza.
I'm guessing today was a little busy for him (I am watching the Twitch stream now
Support has said "customer support is no longer able to provide support on this issue". Which, yes, if the only thing they want to look at is the fact they can't personally fix the bug, sure.
This leaves me with the ship slots still gone and no path forward. I really need someone at Cryptic to help me out here.
thanks. That is one of the reasons I keep coming back to it. I know people are busy, but even after 7 months of this I have to believe it is not the intent of Cryptic as a whole to ignore the problem.
I just don't think support has the tools they need to get this in front of someone who can actually help. And I don't mean fixing the bug. Whether or not it even can be fixed is, after all this time, secondary to some manner of resolution for the purchased items it took.