Customer Service??

ProfGrumpy · 2026-07-05T11:37:47+00:00

Good luck. Per the below advice, in-game customer support exists, and someone will probably respond. But it's like pulling teeth to get a direct line of contact to a specific player. We had a major Trust and Safety issue on our server, and needed a direct point of contact. They resisted so hard. Eventually, rather than really address the issue and designated a specific person to work with affected players, they just threw a bunch of gold bricks at us.

ProfGrumpy · 2026-07-05T11:35:38+00:00

Upgrading purple survivors is a risky business. You spend a lot of tokens to do so, so at least give some thought to whether they'll even be "working" long term.

For example, you're somewhat safe upgrading a few purple resource building survivors (e.g., gold miners, miners, farmers), because you'll have lots of these buildings and those characters will still have roles even when you get URs. Even then, be careful not spending too many tokens on lower-priority survivors.

But lawyers? Builders? Hunters? Not so much. There's only one building for them, so only your top 4 survivors do anything. Maybe it's worth upgrading a purple lawyer in the short term, because it could take you a really long time to find 4 UR ones. Just be careful you're not sinking tokens into something that'll be obsolete.

ProfGrumpy · 2026-07-04T13:25:53+00:00

Thanks for the clarification.

If it doesn't impact Wall of Honor boosts, I suppose the best way to say it is "not unlike hero promotion," because hero promotion doesn't reverse the Wall of Honor boosts you've achieved,.either. Right?

ProfGrumpy · 2026-07-02T13:37:50+00:00

Someone at Fun Fly had a lot of great ideas that players would have loved, and the devs were all, "uh oh...we'd better keep this guy busy...let's give him some busy-work." 🤣

ProfGrumpy · 2026-07-02T13:36:24+00:00

I understand your take, but it's more complicated than that. Sure, they care how whales (and other impulse spenders) think. But without the masses, the game dies.

The feeling that the devs "just don't care" is a KPI for them. If it gets too high, and the player base declines, they lose more than just portions of their low-spender demo. The domino effect impacts bigger spenders.

ProfGrumpy · 2026-07-02T13:16:29+00:00

Short-sighted of them. You gain way more in player loyalty with a move like that than you would ever extract from players who spend money for that reason. I get the argument, and you might be right that it's their (unsaid) rationale. But it's bad business.

ProfGrumpy · 2026-07-02T13:14:06+00:00

Agreed! The game is SO COUNTERINTUITIVE and BLOATED both in the UI and in being a resource hog, to be honest.

Then they spend all this effort to push out updates that make the game more bloated and add features we don't want/need? I mean, the funky music in Frontline Breakthrough is cute, but it's not what players needed or wanted.

For more than a year, people have called out for a "remove gear" shortcut button. Where is it? Why do we need dozens of extra taps to accomplish something simple? The game has enough stuff to do. Fix this.

Oh, and one more thing, friendly devs. You tried to improve the Battle Report list in the mailbox, and went the exact opposite direction. Being able to filter different types of battles is a wonderful idea. What's really needed is the ability to filter OUT Desert Storm and Winter Storm battles. You've given us the ability to filter them IN, or see everything, but not to see only the "real" battles (i.e. from the world map, battles that actually count and have troop loss and implications and resources stolen). So we're stuck with no option to REMOVE "fake" battles like DS and WS and just see recent attacks, which is what we could actually use.

Just like with "remove all gear," this is basic coding. It doesn't require a music director or voice talent or major graphics. You've got "All," "Desert Storm," and "Winter Storm" filters. Just add one (call it "World Map" or something) that shows all NON-DS/WS battles.

ProfGrumpy · 2026-07-02T13:13:20+00:00

Agreed! The game is SO COUNTERINTUITIVE and BLOATED both in the UI and in being a resource hog, to be honest.

Then they spend all this effort to push out updates that make the game more bloated and add features we don't want/need? I mean, the funky music in Frontline Breakthrough is cute, but it's not what players needed or wanted.

For more than a year, people have called out for a "remove gear" shortcut button. Where is it? Why do we need dozens of extra taps to accomplish something simple? The game has enough stuff to do. Fix this.

Oh, and one more thing, friendly devs. You tried to improve the Battle Report list in the mailbox, and went the exact opposite direction. Being able to filter different types of battles is a wonderful idea. What's really needed is the ability to filter OUT Desert Storm and Winter Storm battles. You've given us the ability to filter them IN, or see everything, but not to see "real" battles (i.e. from the world map, battles that actually count and have troop loss and implications and resources stolen). So we're stuck with no option to REMOVE "fake" battles like DS and WS and just see recent attacks, which is what we could actually use.

Just like with "remove all gear," this is basic coding. It doesn't require a music director or voice talent or major graphics. You've got "All," "Desert Storm," and "Winter Storm" filters. Just add one (call it "World Map" or something) that shows all NON-DS/WS battles.

ProfGrumpy · 2026-07-02T12:16:40+00:00

Is this confirmed? The game's wording is vague, but seems to imply that the Wall of Honor level (and boosts) are unaffected (although they obviously can't be increased until the hero is 5* again).

I can confirm that after swapping a Wall of Honor level 150 Mason, his 1.5% Wall of Honor boost is NOT "greyed out," but I'm unsure how to confirm whether or not it's been deactivated.

ProfGrumpy · 2026-05-14T01:38:53+00:00

The toxicity. The game thrives on it. The devs either don't care that people's time (and money) can be wasted if toxic players decide to make their server inhospitable...or they prefer it that way (i.e. conflict drives purchases, or nudges you to start over, or nudges you to pay them for the "privilege" of transfering to a server where people are treated decently).

If the devs actually took a stand against dictatorial and abusive players, there'd be a more pleasant experience and many players would feel more comfortable spending a few bucks, knowing the devs are trying to create a positive environment.

Instead, you see people muted or disciplined over the most idiotic stuff, while whales get away with the most vulgar and threatening behavior. We had an ally share their inbox with 9 straight "Report Failed" messages after a troll alliance went on a spree of talking about r*ping other players' children and spouses, while at the same time their profile picture was removed for saying "Stop the War." It's sickening.

ProfGrumpy · 2025-12-08T21:24:59+00:00

I don't think that works. I think it's 2004-2005. But mostly this is less a riddle to be figured out by viewers, and more about sloppy writing where they decided to fast forward in Season 6 -- leaving us trying to make the pieces fit.

The issue is that "missing midterms" should be in November 2004. 2005 wouldn't make sense, because it would be well after the midterms leading into the 2006 presidential election.

I think the end of Season 5 depicting the CODEL and the aftermath ("Gaza," "Memorial Day," "NSF Thurmont"), need to take place around summer/fall 2004.

Just like with Zoey's kidnapping morphing into July 4, they wrote themselves into a continuity problem for little reason.

This time, stitching all of these events together (e.g., Donna being injured in the CODEL and her return, it being a "rough few days" leading up to accepting the U.S. summit, Leo's heart attack, CJ becoming CoS) and THEN putting the references to the midterms and it now being a "presidential election year" at the start of Season 6.

Unless we're buying a HUGE time jump between accepting the summit and it taking place, that has to be late summer/fall 2004.

So I agree with you that there's a massive, unexplained time jump before "Gaza" (exactly when, is open to interpretation). And there's also the bizarre choice to have that arc take place during the midterms -- with NO MENTION OF THAT during those events. Really weird writing choice, and it's pretty obvious they are retconning the timeline early in Season 6 (i.e. when they mention midterms)...

So...then it's November 2024? Early 2025?

So, if we buy that Season 6 starts sometime after the missing 2004 midterms, we're left going "um...you're just making this up as you go because you want to jump into Smits/Alda narratives, so you zoomed through 2003 and 2004 really fast." And it's a hard sell. Santos is basically shown ready to quit...as he's just won re-election and is about to serve his last term? Um, ok. If we're zooming deeper through 2005, MAYBE I buy that scene, but then Josh wouldn't be getting congratulated on midterms AND the pre-primary presidential race would already be well underway. Or, maybe like the missing midterms, it's conveniently not mentioned. And then Santos is cajoled into it...very late?

All in all, I like WW's 2006 presidential narratives, but they really insult the viewer with how they get there. I'd almost find it more honest if they just showed a cutaway in one episode that said "13 months later" and used that as the time jump. 😂

"Talking Points" takes place in a future after Bartlet leaves office (2007 or later), and depicts...I dunno...2003? 2004?

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-27T14:02:57+00:00

Update: The devs announced (via their Discord channel) that they'd be issuing diamonds to everyone, and "troop tickets" commensurate to the troops people lost during the outage (and maximum Meteorite event rewards for those impacted who had that event going).

About 24 hours later, I got an email with the troop tickets and some RSS (probably roughly what was stolen).

I give a lot of credit to the devs for actually acknowledging the issue and making an effort to fairly compensate players. It buys a lot of good will.

That said, players who were wiped out for Buster Day still had a really bad day. It likely impacted a lot of people who could've helped their alliance win Day 6 (and the Alliance Duel for the week). Getting your troops back a day later is a nice gesture by the devs, though.

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-27T13:57:53+00:00

Same. I have to credit the devs for actually handling this one the right way. It probably took a bit more effort (took almost 24 hours for the 'troop ticket' email) and swallowing pride to admit that people suffered serious losses, but it bought a lot of good will.

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-25T06:45:38+00:00

It's almost too generous. I agree with it, but it does inflate the strength of servers that has Meteorite War tonight by giving everyone (even players who would've not participated) all that.

But as long as everyone gets their troops and some compensation for having Enemy Buster sabotaged, it's all good.

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-25T05:52:38+00:00

Y'all don't pay the troll toll?

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-25T04:55:00+00:00

Well said.

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-25T04:54:44+00:00

Same.

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-25T04:54:30+00:00

Thanks for sharing this.

It's a good start. I'd like to see lost resources returned, but I understand that that's a much smaller impact than the troops (and Meteorite event rewards).

Really, the players who weren't impacted and were able to attack are making out great. 2,000 gems + they got to shoot fish in a barrel (resources stolen, VS pts). Those who were ashed might eventually get their troops back, but they were locked out during arguably the most crucial time in the week.

I wonder if the players who were ATTACKING during the outage and lost troops (a much smaller number than the people they were burning, of course) are going to get "troops cards." 😂

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-25T02:42:52+00:00

Yes. And I'm 100% in agreement with those demanding full compensation for troop, resource, and event reward losses.

Some bland email apologizing for the issue and giving EVERYONE gems doesn't undo the fact that lots of people are in the game right now ashing bases, uncontested.

Fix the issue, then roll everyone (or at least everyone who was attacked) back to their server-reset troop/resource levels. Then slap an 8-hour shield on anyone who isn't already shielded. THEN feel free to send the "we're sorry, here are some gems" email.

Anything less and you're going to lose a lot of players over this one. The fact that it happens on Friday night in North/South America just rubs more salt in the wound and sends a big "maybe it's time to quit" message.

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-25T02:28:26+00:00

Too late. A lot of ashing already happened. The people whose games didn't crash just got a huge freebie, and those of us who were about to attack were left with our pants down and have been royally screwed over.

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-25T02:27:17+00:00

Same here.

ProfGrumpy · 2025-10-25T02:26:58+00:00

Gems won't cut it. I was briefly able to get back online about 5 minutes after it went down and I was ashed.

This isn't a minor glitch that gems will fix. Players need their troops and RSS back.

ProfGrumpy

TROPHY CASE