In some ways War Zone Director Philippe Therien has become the unofficial community manager of Reddit for Marvel’s Avengers. In his latest responses to the community, PhilT, as he’s known on the Discord and Reddit, talks about their problems with communication, and provides a little insight into development.
In just a few days, the next patch for Marvel’s Avengers will drop, bringing a ton of new features, a new character, a new storyline, and some unwanted changes, like increasing the time it takes to level a character to 50. The response to the leveling speed increase has been overwhelmingly negative, which led to several explanations of the change, so that players would understand more of what was changing, and why. PhilT acknowledged this in one of the posts, and explained that the community team actually wants to provide more information than they can.
“It’s pretty fair to say that accuracy in information is something that is very important, to all of us really. So, I don't always get to speak about everything, it makes sense though. There's really no malice here, I go to several meetings where the community team is pushing constantly to give you guys updates. Sometimes we move too quick (See the XP blog) and things don't come out the right way. So, in some instances, we take our time to get our facts right and make sure that you have context”
- Philippe Therien, War Zone Director, Marvel's Avengers
He goes on to say that he wishes the changes for the XP Rework had been better communicated to the players. He also addressed features that have been teased but haven’t been spoken about at length, one of which being the Gear Rework which is probably the most needed and most anticipated change to the game currently. According to PhilT, just because they haven’t spoken about a feature, doesn’t mean that the feature has been cut, as some features may take precedence over others. While it’s somewhat of a conundrum at this point to say which features are being prioritized, as the customizable Harm Room wasn’t a particular request, some players are getting their prayers answered in the form of the ability to replay the story mission, something that hasn’t been possible, unless you started a completely new game.
“We know we can and must do better guys. I know missed promises feel like lies but the truth sometimes it’s far more nuanced than that. We make decisions to scope or move things often and unfortunately if that happens after we announced something it’s not great for anyone. Please understand that the current caution is an equal measure of respect for you. It may not feel that way and that’s where things could be better.”
- Philippe Therien, War Zone Director, Marvel's Avengers
As well-meaning as PhilT’s intentions are, it, unfortunately, doesn’t portend to any actual positive communication with the community in the future. Phil has gone out of his way to interact with the community in ways that mostly fall to a more community-focused team, and regrettably, Phil seems to feel as though he has to apologize to the Marvel’s Avengers community for the lack of this type of communication. The upcoming patch for Marvel’s Avengers, 1.5 that includes the operation Future Imperfect will arrive March 18th.
