I think it's high time we discuss communication on here, because lately it's continuing to be terrible.

Staff and users are not on the same page. At all. Staff does one thing, when we asked for something different. Updates on whatever is going on is either stuck here in the forums if we're lucky, or on Discord. Even though I use discord, I don't check Subeta's discord for updates. Because it's an offshoot of the main site and I'm also not accustomed to it. Because for years before Discord, everything was released in the news. Like it was supposed to be.

I don't think a news post linking to a forum update is conducive either, but it's at least something. But the whole thing is a mess and inconsistent.

Why is the news page not being used properly for updates on features and the like? Are you afraid that if you post too frequently in the news about shit not working right that would steer new players away? Well the way things are going ain't much better, new players join, see the terribleness of how things are handled between staff and users, and leave. They come here to escape Neo's crap service. Subeta had the best of the best in its heyday. Now Subeta has managed to become worse than Neo's. That says something.

Still nothing about MM. There's the beanbag fiasco going on right now that is absolutely absurd how it was handled (why was it not dropped under everyone's trees or a free gift?). Do I even need to mention the Teahouse? It's a fucking meme at this point.

Air out your grievances here regarding staff-user communication. See how long until this thread gets locked I guess. But enough is enough. If no one else will say it, then I will.

I feel like the lights but nobody is home. As much as Staff likes to gripe about people not reading the admin posts page, I do. I check multiple times a day. It gives me an idea of how present the Staff are because if bug fixes are happening, I know someone is around.

And I can still scroll down and see Keith's MM update. Which was 3 weeks ago. We haven't heard anything about MM or the items tied up in it for 3 weeks. The admin posts are at a crawl right now.

Honestly, the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 has been a disappointment between the site breaking, the two extra Melody items and the resulting bait and switch, and I hate MM but people have been waiting for for almost two months now.

Like. Where did everyone go?

I gave up trying to keep informed on site things especially if it's dropped offsite, this is subeta not discord or whatever other site. (wth should I have to use nth number of sites to try to get info on the site I'm on? Oh, because no one wants to say anything on this site?)

So if I actually know anything it's either because I stumbled upon it in boredom or most likely another user is passing it on (like a game of broken telephone).

Honestly, it really saddens me to see the disconnect between staff and users... ngl I'm hella bummed by the lack of communication too. Like there's the beanbag, the skates, MM being mysterious due to its status (update please??? o: I hope Keith's ok + MM was one of my fave parts of Lumi even if I got a lot of dud matches--I just want to do more gift giving), a new book in BHH... I don't think I haven't seen a news update where people pipe up about legitimate concerns/frustrations and such. I also had zero idea about the subeta discord too. When I returned from semi-hiatus, I thought about putting money down for a subscription to support the staff, but I'm honestly leaning the other way now after seeing the staff and user dynamic. Everyone seems angry--users don't feel heard and staff just seem annoyed that they have something to say rather than seeming genuinely sympathetic to user concern. Frankly, that's not healthy in like the remotest of ways. Like how did we get here? A TON of people have fond memories of when staff were on top of it and there was a lot of user goodwill... like this might be nostalgia speaking, but I remember plenty of minds being blown during the plot where we discovered Shengui Guo. But tbh I'm not sure what happened along the way. I've been super on and off the site, so honestly I can't even say I have a legit timeline or a proper figment of what the heck happened; it's just that the vibes are so so different now. I saw someone basically go f this shit, I'm freezing myself now on the MM update thread and that made me go woahh that's kinda intense.

The beanbag situation feels crazy because users were expecting a way to add the beanbag to their collections without a ton of pain and then they went and locked it behind a battle challenger who's really difficult; if you're a casual battler (like lmaooo me vibin with a freshly t8 pet), you basically get locked out of the loot--so it totally makes sense that people are frustrated. Dismissing them by saying "lmaoooo can't do shit without making someone angry" is honestly just being inflammatory; I get that staff are people too and it must be disheartening to feel like you're constantly shit on regardless of what choices you make, but I feel like it's also really important to take a step back and really think about the optics. You made it much harder to get ahold of certain item collection items because of a goof up with Melody item quantities--I think you would've made a LOT more people excited if you had been like "oop we goofed, there's a little extra holiday spirit to go around this year, who needs trees??? giftboxes for everyone haha" than the strat of "how do we lock the supply of these (frankly adorable) items that were intended to be given out?" While I'm not personally offended by not having complete collections (I just think the sloth is really darn cute, ok? I would love a copy for Inure, but I've already made my peace with the fact that a) I'm not getting one and b) I don't think I want to shill the sP for it), there are plenty of people who LOVE completing them and put a lot of time/effort/sP into it... and I don't think alienating them was necessarily the right move. Like I saw someone offering 100m to get the last sticker they needed... and then like a day later a new sticker was in the item directory and that same user was like shoot not another one, I spent my life savings JUST finishing that collection.

We don't need everything for free; I get it, there's a balance between making things too easy vs too hard, we can't expect handouts all the damn time, that'd be entitled as hell. I get that you want to give battlers an exciting incentive, but like an event exclusive battle drop is kind of depressing. I'm not even sure the sloth enthused them much, if at all.... but it did make plenty of people balk at staff decision-making. If you really want to get your hands on it, I guess you better crack open your vault and hope a high level battler is willing to let go of their sloth. :/

I almost wonder what staff priorities are; so many people seem bitter and angry and I'm not sure what measures are being taken to try to smooth things over and get them excited about being on Subeta. I would love to be in the room where a lot of these decisions are made because the user unhappiness is just fully bristling at some of their choices... and choices they certainly are. Like BHH vs high difficulty battle drop loot can't possibly be the ONLY options on hand right? Unless I'm helllllllla missing something.

"Like BHH vs high difficulty battle drop loot can't possibly be the ONLY options on hand right? Unless I'm helllllllla missing something."

FOR SOMETHING THAT WAS MEANT TO BE A MELODY ITEM.

Someone pointed out that Free Gift is right there and they're right.

Also, idk, but I think that battlers have it pretty easy lately. One monthly free challenger, one monthly paid challengers, four new challengers on Fireside, one new Bopper...I can't exactly say that battling needed the Sloth beanbag as new content/rewards. Hoarfrost already had its loot, after all.

So, adding the beanbag as battle loot was...not great.

"so honestly I can't even say I have a legit timeline or a proper figment of what the heck happened; it's just that the vibes are so so different now. I saw someone basically go f this shit, I'm freezing myself now on the MM update thread and that made me go woahh that's kinda intense."

Subeta's on a skeleton crew now, and while staff are leaving, it doesn't feel like an effort is made to replace them. We haven't had new artists opening in years, the forums are...not that active, and coding goes at a snail's pace.

I don't know, but it's kinda hard getting excited for new things when...the new things aren't coming out. I think the community in general understands why it's happening, but...people might be running out of patience?

Just for full transparency I wouldn't say battlers have had it "easy" lately. We've just seen our first bit of things being spiced up in literal years. (new weapon, weapon restats and + new event challengers). Hoarfrost was asleep since 2020 and we're still behind on cash shop challengers.

While I agree communication is....horse shit....and has been forever...I don't think focusing this topic on a single beanbag and it being "too expensive" not even 24 hours after its release as the main issue is productive at all. Give it time to stabilize and you should be able to snag one with an easy couple days profit from questing.

Everyone can agree it would be a lot better to have a central place for updates. When using other mediums of communication like discord or responding in news comments / forum posts, you should update the central place and reference it in these mediums for full transparency.

[edit] And just updates in general versus ghosting. [/edit]

@ sopheroo Just gonna say from my own perspective the battle content is very much appreciated, but even I have to step back and agree that this special loot drop was not necessary. It was just getting Hoarfrost back that made us happy. I don't think it's fair to call out the battle community for "having it easy" when none of us were asking for this beanbag to be a special loot drop for a seasonal challenger.

Also what Evil said. We haven't had a plot or boss battle that isn't just Hydragellos in forever now. We take what we can get. I personally would rather see the CSC challenger go down to bi-monthly or tri-monthly so the artist behind the wonderful art doesn't burn out.

This is getting slightly off the topic, but I've even seen other battlers suggest doing Throwback challengers again this year or something so that we don't end up even more behind with the monthlies (although moving them to every couple of months could work too).

But yeah I do agree, we got the new Community Manager and it felt like things were moving in the right direction for a bit, but now it's kind of back to feeling like is anyone even around? I understand that some staff members have been sick and that contributed to some of the problems for a bit, but now it still kind of feels like not much is really happening and we have no way of knowing what's going on behind the scenes if we're not told about it, and Soon™ isn't really an answer.

...wait, that beanbag was supposed to be a Melody item and you stuck it on Hoarfrost, of all challengers? I've been numb to subeta since your lootbox fiasco. No one's going to accuse me of being smart, but there are actual Lumi challengers that are accessible to way more players and instead you made the conscious choice to put a Melody item on Hoarfrost? That BHH book was also a Melody item? And loot and BHH instead of free gift or NPC tree gifts?

I'm sorry, is there something I'm missing here because this looks like callousness?

It's worth pointing out the incentives for battlers to fight Hoarfrost are experience points, tomes, amulets, and freezing eyes of royalty. Not missing Melody sloths.

I'm not sure about the book because it was added more recently, so it could have always been intended for BHH.

and

^ Those two items originally appeared in the directory with the Melody Item rarity but didn't get used in Melody's Cottage.

The ice skates were put in the Token Shop recently, but another comment from Amber in the same news post mentioned this.

Although yeah, I'm not really sure how adding it as loot for a challenger that many people can't defeat is somehow a more ideal situation when they could have done it as a free gift or something. There have been beanbags and such released as free gifts before.

place your bets on how long staff lets this topic stay unlocked LOL

editing to say that i have been vocal about my feelings about staff's blatant disregard for open communication. why they hell are things hidden in news comments (that are a pain to load if there's a lot of them, most people easily overlook them bc who wants to read through the news comments on every single post, and they aren't easily referenced since they can't be hotlinked) and news updates SURE AS HELL do not belong off site for christ's sake. i truly, TRULY do not understand why this has been so fucking hard for staff to understand.

Users in every part of the site have grievances:

• collectors having beanbags or plushies put as time sensitive prizes
• battlers not being given incentives (ie: battle related loot, updates to old unusable loot, comprehensive guides, consistent events, etc.) to continue battling
• subjectivity in the release process for CWs and how rules are upheld
• delays and overall playability of site events (ie: teahouse, fireside story contest, site downtime and lag in every event, etc)
• Inconsistency with pet updates (ie: new colors, missing colors, new species, jobs, etc.) on a site that is a "pet oriented site"

And it all boils down to one thing: A lack of communication between staff. A community manager is great to keep track of what the majority of subeta is looking for so that staff can prioritize what to work on next, but the ball continues to get dropped when it comes to execution. There is a huge disconnect between who is doing what for each part of the site. I think what subeta really needs is a general manager for the staff so that it's not all falling on just Keith. This person should be organized, task oriented, and know how to meet goal deadlines through project scheduling. They should be able to work with the community manager as well as the other admins that focus on different site aspects (programming, item art, battling, events, releases) in order to do the following:

• Keep the site running smoothly
• Keep users happy, wanting to come back and refer friends
• Meet site commits so they are released as planned
• Adapt in order to meet goals
• Keep communication fluent

[edit] In regards to discord - I agree that using a platform other than subeta to send out important updates and other news is counter-productive to the site's wellbeing. It's encouraging users to use other platforms and move away from subeta.

i’m so tired of all this

Contrary to popular belief not everyone is on Discord, not everyone wants to be on Discord. I'm not signing up for a completely different website so that I can access critical news that should be posted right here.

Twitter, facebook and tumblr are also annoying, but at least I don't have to sign up to access the content.

Same here. I don't want to sign up to another site just so I can read news which should be put on Subeta's own news page.

Don't forget those who focus solely on pets are bummed at the lack of new pet art going out in a consistent manner. It's been okay-ish, but we've not heard anything about any new potential artists being hired at all. That was some time last year I think.

And I completely forget we had a community manager.

The fact that so much stuff is apparently (???) discussed in a pseudo-official capacity in Discord is kind of... mind-boggling?? I use Discord but very much for personal chatting with IRL friends, and can't even find the Subeta discord server lol. Good grief what a bad practice though

Also, the Pet Spotlight has been broken since the beginning of November. It wasn't showing up in the news so it was turned off while programmers are looking into it see Destiny's post - dated 11th Nov in this topic. https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/922071/Pet-Spotlight-not-showing-up-on-News-page

We know the site is short staffed etc etc but it would be nice to be told if programmers are still looking into it.

...I completely forgot about the pet aspect of a pet-centered site LOL. I guess things really are bad. I updated my original post. Thanks for the feedback!

there is a link at the bottom of the page - if you haven't turned off the footer via CSS.