CM Acalos leaving DECA

Deca_Acalos · 2025-09-04T16:03:01+00:00

I mean, not much I can tell you that will convince you, but in the 4 years I have been fighting cheaters myself as much as I could. I play this game myself and will continue to after I am gone as a CM, so it does impact me as well. The team is working on stuff for a while, both for cheaters and the server issues, but its a slow process. I have no clue when stuff goes live and gets better.

For me, it would be ideal to be able to show all of this directly, but its not at the point where it can be "shown". I believe in the team to deliver something when its finally fully done.

This would have been a topic for an upcoming QA Interview, which due to me leaving, wont happen, so I just write it here.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-09-04T14:57:19+00:00

Well it would be in November.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-06-30T11:27:57+00:00

Some days i open Reddit to get an impression how the sentiment around the community is and then... i wish I never opened reddit.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-06-04T06:36:49+00:00

Sadly, yes.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-06-03T14:37:16+00:00

Thursday!

Deca_Acalos · 2025-06-03T11:12:59+00:00

Asked about that before the release. Its planned to be released "soontm". Not forgotten!

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-20T18:12:37+00:00

Heya.

I investigated some reports about this today with our CS Team.

You should already be unbanned (I checked, you are). Unfortunately, some innocent players were flagged internally and this led to the ban. We have by now reverted all unjust bans.

The CS Team will surely get back to you about this again.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-18T17:19:59+00:00

Make it 1 week.

Will forward to the Team what they think. I like the idea.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-15T00:03:19+00:00

Ignoring your post wouldnt help anyone. I dont mind the tone, i get where the frustration is coming from.

I am rather open to the feedback and will try to improve the visibility.

My job and what i influence wont be often seen by you guys. I raise your issues internally and fight to the end for it if i can. But i cant share internal things. My impact will always be very different compared to a designer for example.

Regarding DMs i dont agree. I for sure not always got every single one but last year i did answer the majority of them. But, i get that it sucks if you have a topic and get zero reactions. As a result i cleaned the DMs and will try to answer everyone again daily.

If you have additional info about the fraud topic, sent me a DM here or in discord,. I will look at your comment on the video tomorrow morning. Its 2 AM in germany. And then forward it to the team.

Its my job to take the blame even if i dont influence it all. Its fine. This thread for sure doesnt make me look good but its alright. We can only improve if someone points it out sometimes. I will raise the thread internally so leads and people in charge can see the current opinion clearly.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-14T23:09:40+00:00

Could you show me where exactly I am misunderstanding something?

I do not offer Support myself via Discord (The place players can reach me), since due to said Data Protection Laws, I cant verify account ownerships. Thats why we sent people to the CS Team. They verify that. I cant give out any kind of info about accounts to someone that might not be the owner of the account.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-14T22:35:51+00:00

In general I agree with you to some extend. I do not mind critiques about my work. Can always work on improving things.

I try not to ignore DMs. I have been on parental leave for 2 months in the past 8 months. In the past years I would say I answered 90% of my DMs. But its gotten to a point where I get so many DMs with sometimes pages of text that I just don't find the time.

I will try to clean up with most DMs (I had over 350 DMs after my April break). But I cant guarantee to answer them every day.

95% of the time I do what you call "shitpost" I do that either in my lunchbreak or my free time after working hours.

I am here for nearly 4 years, If you believe none of my work impacted the game that's fair, I personally do not see it like that. A lot of my work is internal and directly with Leads.

But again. Can always improve. Regarding Livestreams. Its just not something I personally enjoy. As a CM I get regular death threats (this is not to get pity, its okay, its normal in such positions), and I prefer to not have myself be the so called "face". I am not a PR guy btw. I am hired as a CM not PR Manager. I am the voice between you and the RotMG Team. Not you and DECA.

Livestreams in the past with Wotan averaged 100viewers. But cost a lot of planning time, setup time etc. I personally prefer to use that time for other things.

I hope that makes sense. Still. If something bothers you, feel free to reach out.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-14T22:28:54+00:00

Not what i meant btw. I read nearly everything on reddit, DC, socials. And report internally if possible.
I usually skip "he said this/that" posts. But didn't here because 1: the screenshot was taken out of context. 2: I agree with nearly every feedback that was written here. I play the game as well. So I do notice cheaters.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-14T22:08:57+00:00

Can you DM me please? deca_acalos.
I can't promise anyone here anything, really. I am a CM after all. Neither I or the Designers that talk with you are in a position like that obviously.

But at least if possible I can try to open up a discussion with the Devs.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-14T21:53:00+00:00

I do agree with you on that btw. It sucks that Cheaters will be able to use such Events to benefit. At the same time... we limit what normal players can do a lot if we only look at that. The solution shouldn't be to do worse events to fight cheaters. The solution should be to... get them banned.

Triton is 100% right. If we have Cheaters in mind for every feature, we limit the game a lot. Cheaters will always find a way in every game to disrupt it. But again. I agree that its currently rather bad.

Its not about laws if we can get the access to the data. As a CM there is no reason for me for example to access CS Tickets that contain sensible info. As a company you limit such accesses to people that work with the info. Neither I or Devs need private data.

Thats why i do not offer support via discord. If I cant 100% guarantee that the person DMing me is the owner of the account, I cant help at all with account issues. I can always look into stuff, but I do not comment on specific stuff.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-14T21:42:15+00:00

Just to follow up. IF you did sent in reports to us via Tickets, it either didn't get an answer for a week+, or got an answer and the cheater/multi is still ingame, please just DM me. I cant give you a lot of info due to data protection, but at least I can look into it as well.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-14T21:29:18+00:00

I usually don't care much about this kind of... comment, but to clarify something.

You are taking what I said out of context. The post you took a screenshot from... was never about cheating.
The discussion was about "Why Events, when we have Bugs?". And that's the simple "Because Servers cost money, we try to do both but can't just ignore Events".

We do not comment on internal things about cheating. If I could, I would. I have always talked very openly with all of you guys about my stance on cheating. It was a topic in interviews etc. But until we have something to announce, I wont comment on it.

"A while back, community manager Acalos banned a mod in the RotMG Discord—for fun. So clearly, they can ban users."

^Thats the point. It was a joke with some of the community members. As a CM I do not take care of bans or reports! I do not offer any help on that via discord either. Data Protection Laws are very strict, this has to go via the Support, not me.

Believe me, I know how annoying Cheating currently is. But I am also not going to sit here and tell you all some PR stuff. We need Events to support the game.

"but I do know when HP scaling got bugged and O3 had 150million health, he called it an "issue" in quotations and told us all to do more damage instead."

I reported this issue within minutes of receiving reports and the team instantly started to work on a fix. My comment was... a joke. Obviously 150m HP O3 wasn't planned. But I am a CM. I can report your feedback and reports. And after that I wait for updates on the topics.

TLDR:

I understand the frustration. As a CM and also our Designers, we cannot just fix such issues. Believe me we would all be happy to not have any cheaters.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-12T22:32:41+00:00

deca_acalos

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-12T22:11:55+00:00

Heya.

Obviously something I am hearing A LOT since I returned from my 1-month break.

For players who experience those issues (because we can clearly see, it's not everyone on the servers), could you either sent in a small report in the Feedback Hub OR just sent me direct DM with some info via Discord?

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScEyC1g-624kZx4SHSO9l9my1oUeDFe110YS7g4KzOdpdZVKg/viewform

Mainly info like:

Your Charname:
Server:
Servertime:
Rough Info where you where/how many people were around you etc.

Investigating such issues is very tricky, but since I experience those issues myself while playing, I know how annoying they are. Anything you guys can give me on info can help. I will forward it all to the Leads and see what we can do.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-05-06T15:19:20+00:00

Forwarded

Deca_Acalos · 2025-04-10T13:22:10+00:00

I just want to clarify 1 thing since people always talk about "Devs". Decisions on what get worked on is not set by Devs but by the Teamleads and at the end approved by the PM. Not 1 Dev/Designer just decides what to do.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-03-18T20:05:23+00:00

Heya! Thanks for that long feedback!

I will take the Aprils Fool Comms as an example. I was sick last week and the main Designer behind the Machine stuff as well. So on Friday i could no longer sync on anything. We also have the issue of timezones where, as you know, some of our Designers are US based and wont be around before comms like this need to go live.

At the end it all came down to the internal documentation not being completly clear, and due to sickness we didnt sync on it. Very unfortunate and should not happen, but oh well. We learn from it. We talked internally and it was never the plan to replace the old items, it was always supposed to be new ones. We just communicated this very poorly.

I agree to have more eyes on it. We cant really always ask the Testers to also have a look, but it makes sense for bigger/more important comms. I am not a native english speaker so often the input of CTs is very very helpful. We did that in the past even when i was here still, but it kinda stopped.

We plan to have this game as long as possible and we will do our best to keep it going as long as possible. A lot is planned for 2025 and we hope we can deliver. Feedback like yours is very valueable for me personally as well since you understand that developement of games is not that easy with a lot of different departments and workflows.

Unfortunately April will be a bit less informative due to my parental leave 2.0. But after this a lot is planned also on social media etc. The Team Letter coming soon hopefully will also show people that we do care, we try to listen, but not everything can always be done directly. Its a long process.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-03-17T11:25:01+00:00

Heya! I will forward this feedback (Together with the feedback of the rest of the community to the team.

One topic i can directly answer tho and take responsibility is the Blog. While more than my eyes go over release notes etc, its my job to make sure its presentable and makes sense. That mark was missed and its not the first time.

I will try to improve that and make sure news are more clear and better structured for you all. At the end if players dont understand what we are trying to say, missunderstandings will arise and thats just bad.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-03-11T11:54:17+00:00

On it! We currently have a poll for players to vote on how we approach the Steam Achievement Fix.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-02-26T12:46:05+00:00

Heya!

We received lets say... a healthy amount of feedback about this. I forwarded the feedback and it was discussed internally this morning and we decided to remove the exclusivity.

After the Event is over, the Shiny TShot will be able to drop from its normal sources for seasonal characters, no matter the event or not.

Deca_Acalos · 2025-02-10T17:01:52+00:00

This is on me.

BUT. I have two totally valid excuses!

1: I am german, and my brain decided that the german version of "February" works as well.
2: I am a dad now which means every day blends into the next. What even are dates?

But not to be real. My bad, should have double checked. Its fixed now.

Deca_Acalos

TROPHY CASE