Makeitwitchu

Ello, makeitwitchu/wammyjammies here. Used to play PRO a lot as part of NoMercy, reached 400+ rating at my peak, but usually sat around the 300s. Not really that active since I live a busy life, but would like to feel part of a guild again. ● What's your in-game name? makeitwitchu, have an alt named wammyjammies too ● How old are you? 27 ● Are you active in Discord? Used to be very active, less so now. Am out and about most nights, but always happy to screenshare when I have a free night. ● Where are you from? Belgium ● What's your total playtime? 1346h apparently, lockdown hit differently apparently ● What's your goal in PRO? Not much, if I am being honest. I enjoy playing PvP and tend to get good rating, so figured it would be nice to help out a guild. ● What do you enjoy while playing the game? Purely PvP. I do not have time to grind or play PvE, nor do I enjoy it. ● Why do you want to be part of the guild? Would be nice to feel like my rating is contributing to something bigger. Also, since I have abandoned the PVE part of PRO, it would be good to be able to lend PvP mons of people so I can experiment with new teams/adapt my teams without needing to grind. ● What's your favourite Pokemon and why? I live and die by rain teams, so probably Pelipper.

I think you misread my post and got hung up on the "Trump" bit. I'll elaborate: the Trump reference was made in reference to what I consider the problematic attitude of "if someone acts like an [inappropriate term], they are just being honest," a common defence used by Trump voters during his campaign. Unlike other politicians, who spoke politely and did not make offensive remarks, Trump's voters argued he was different because he spoke his mind. Again, acting like an [inappropriate term] was confused with sincerity. In saying "Trump anyone?" I did not say qeight = Trump, that would be reductive and stupid, I was just trying to draw a real world analogy between the defence of qeight's dismissive comments as "just being honest" and the defence of Trump's rhetoric because hey it's nice to draw real world analogies sometimes. I apologise if that was not clear. This might come as a surprise to you, but I'm also far from mad nor is this personal. I really do not have any beef with qeight, I didn't even know of his existence until very recently as I am not incredibly involved with PRO's inner workings nor do I care to be. For all I knew, Prehax was just a funny npc in a Munchlax costume. Either way, you seem very set in your ways so I will stop trying to reason with you. I am just asking you try to think outside of the literal print for a change. Just because someone says something is one thing, does not mean that it matches reality. Yes, you are right, it does state they are hobbyists. So what? Everything else about the game, from the way the staff is run to the announcements they make is modelled after a game company, so why shouldn't their interactions with their playerbase not be either? I hope this clears some things up for you. I'm not "bashing" anyone, if anything, you are the one getting unnecessarily aggressive and personal.

Oh no, I fully agree with you when it comes to the two-way street thing. Respect needs to be earned by both parties and that is sadly not always the case for both sides. The downside of being staff is that your actions are highly public and, generally, held to a certain standard, whether that is correct or not is not for me to decide. I am not saying "the man" exists here, but I do think for any of this dialogue to be productive the fact that there is a power imbalance between both parties needs to be acknowledged and as with all power this comes with responsibility. In these scenarios, I'd argue it is the responsibility to be the bigger person or to lead by example. I think the post Keita made above contextualising is a great start and highlights how some of the comments made were a lapse of judgement, which is completely understandable. I don't expect a staff member to be the perfect human, to never get frustrated or be emotional. It happens. It should not be normalised, however. In my opinion at least.

That is such a flawed way of thinking though. For one, what is claimed and what is conveyed is not always the same. The rhetoric, the structure, the donation system is all set up to mimic a game company, you can't just ignore that because of one line of text. Being self-proclaimed hobbyist should not excuse you from being held accountable. If you want to submissively bow your head and not try to enact positive change, that is fine, but do not attack those who do because of your own unwillingness to think critically.

I really despise this rhetoric of "assholes are just honest people" (Trump anyone?), it confuses arrogance with sincerity. If you are going to establish a hierarchical relationship between players and staff, if you are going to operate on secrecy and a rigid structure of roles, if you are, in short, going to act like a professional game dev team, diplomatic language is not a courtesy, but a basic sign of respect to your playerbase. It should be expected of staff to respond to whatever question or suggestion, no matter how stupid it may be, in a polite manner. This is the case in any profession. Refusing to do so is not some sign of "extreme honesty," it is lazy and causes a rift that can be easily avoided. I am not saying staff need to do players' bidding or oblige every request, that would be stupid. Hell, even a suggestion can be utterly useless if it clashes with the design philosophy of the game. Fine. But you have to understand that the people you talk to are the same people that have invested a lot of time in playing and caring about your game and they deserve, if nothing else, not to be dismissed rudely. Perhaps PRO needs to recruit a PR member to smooth these things out moving forward, I am not sure, but I always felt the communication side of things was off and this could have been easily prevented by communicating the right things at the right time. Nevertheless, as you mentioned in your other post, I agree that this thread is being derailed. It shouldn't be a witch hunt. The dismissiveness of Qeight's language is a symptom of a wider problem in player - staff relationships i.e. the fact that he is not good at "putting on a fake smile and lying to your face that he'll think about it" is not the main issue, the main issue is that pretending they'll think about a suggestion seems to be the norm as opposed to actually thinking about it.

I am guessing you being deliberately vague here is intentional and you do not want to reveal what this reason is, but just in case it is not: care to disclose what you think this reason is? It seems you have some insight that could be valuable here. Then again, if it is sensitive information for whatever purpose, I completely understand, no need to disclose.

I very much agree with this and I thought that was clear in my post. At the end of the day, it's a two-way street. The alienation is based on a mutual lack of understanding, fostering frustration. To me, the main solution is an open dialogue and increased transparency, something that is improving, albeit slowly. I think opening a public forum where people can air out grievances and the staff can justify their decisions without invalidating a player's opinion, how stupid or ungrounded they may appear to be, is a great step in the right direction and I applaud the initiative. Players need staff as much as staff needs players, especially in smaller communities like ours. I agree staff should preserve their artistic integrity and should be able to enact their vision of the game, but if it is seen as a decrease in quality of life by the majority of the community, alternatives should be brought forward. To clarify: I am speaking of issues like PvP bans and the recent change in the Reborn bot which relate to the enjoyment of the game, not to suggestions like "make legendary easy to get pls" which go against the philosophy of the development team.

Just to clarify: the Stalin joke came AFTER you moved the post to a private area where the community would not be able to further read it and was born out of frustration with the way you handled my criticism. That does not make my comment right, and I apologise for any offense it may have caused, but claiming it was part of my original, perfectly respectful post, is false. Do not justify your burying of my post by pointing towards my the comments I made after the fact. That makes no sense and only serves your preconceived notions.

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As a player, I am not much of a hunter nor has the "change" really affected me. Given your experience, I am sure you are very competent at your job and I have no intention of doubting your decision or vision. My issue, however, is with the philosophy your rhetoric here manifests. Although I am sure you feel justified to dismiss any complaints by the userbase at this point because historically the relationship between staff and the playerbase has not always been great, this antagonism is still something that can be learned from. It goes both ways. I have always felt the playerbase could be a bit more forgiving and less greedy, a lot of the feedback you receive is unproductive, that is true. At the same time, however, the hierarchical power relationship between staff and playerbase in this community is absurd for a fangame. There is little to no transparency or discussion. Feedback gets routinely ignored. The fact that players keep complaining about the staff should not be seen as inherently unjust and invalid because "dumb players just don't get what goes into making this game," but as a symptom of an issue in mentality at the core of your team. Most people are fine with ignoring this toxic attitude because they ultimately enjoy the product you have created (or they are too invested to quit), but when you start using language like the above quote the ugliness of the reality is exposed. I hope you take this as criticism and not as a personal attack because that it is what the following is: a critique of the ways in which you have chosen to communicate, what that says about your view of the playerbase, and the precedent this sets. I do not care for attacking you personally, this is not about you as an individual, but about your role as a staff member and how adequately or inadequately you perform your assigned role. I cannot help but feel a strong sense of contempt for your playerbase shine through in the above quote. You sound exhausted with people critiquing you, despite community feedback being the life and blood of games like this. Yes, you are by far the most qualified to talk about spawns given your experience, but this does not mean that every decision you make is automatically right. A new perspective on an issue should always be welcomed, not outright rejected based on a lack of perceived expertise. What is even more striking, is the fact that you legitimise your decision by threatening to revert back to worse spawns than before. I understand you say this to highlight the fact that hey you worked hard to improve spawns, so you DO care about the quality of life of your players, but this is just a terrible way of conveying that. It reads as if you are telling people to shut up or you will make it even worse than it currently is. Imagine calling your internet provider to complain about your net dying and the customer service agent telling you: "Well, it used to die a lot more, so you should consider yourself lucky. If you keep calling this number, I can make it so that it dies every few minutes if you'd like." This is poor communication and it further cements the gap between staff and an already alienated playerbase. To add insult to injury, you condemn people for calling you a dictator and in the same breath you threaten to silence them if they speak out against you. Surely you must see the hypocrisy in that statement. That is all I wanted to say. It is something that has been bothering me for a while, but I never managed to put my finger on it. I hope you treat this like the valid criticism it is, reacting to my feedback as opposed to deleting it outright would already be a big step in the right direction. I would like to end by saying this game has been good to me, I have enjoyed playing it a lot. The last few months have been rough, admittedly, but you find yourself at a juncture where it is essential to appreciate the people that stuck with you and maybe use this as an opportunity to start with a clean sheet, fostering a new culture of open dialogue and transparency. Hopefully, the playerbase will reward you for putting in this effort by offering valid feedback and being more patient and forgiving. As I said before, it goes both ways.

Ghabra is my favourite person in this community, he must be protected at all costs

I commend you on such a well-written post, g3n. It's a shame the community doesn't really seem capable of or interested in providing genuine feedback. I think all in all the majority of negative comments stem from the fact that the post is a bit premature. Most people want to see how the meta plays out in practice before forming their opinions. Hopefully, people will return to your well-phrased arguments in the near future though when talking about this topic becomes more relevant.

I also am in agreement with this post