FURIOUS with Customer Support!

I am SO ANGRY at NCSoft's Customer Support I'm seeing RED!

Recently I joined a team to go do Hess' task force, once we gathered we found that no one could start it, so we all decided to flash back and do the preliminary missions to unlock Hess. Couple hours later we're finally doing Hess' task force and all is going well. At the end we fight and defeat Archon Burkholder and as we're racing towards the exit half the team gets a Mapserver disconnect.

We log back in, wait for everyone to get on, and turn in the mission ending the task force. Then we find out that some of us who mapservered, myself included. Did NOT get awarded our badge/merits.

SO I contacted support who immediately said "sorry cant find anything in the logs" but then another GM said "escalating to higher GM". I reply with a cut and paste of my logs with the timestamps showing the whole fight, Burkholder getting defeated AND my rewards, only to have the senior gm coem back and say "Oh we see you fought burkholder but there is no indication that you won". Yet people on our team GOT THE BADGE! and that can ONLY be gotten by defeating BURKHOLDER!

GOD THIS PISSES ME OFF! /sigh

I've updated the question with the pertinent parts of the log again and suggested they look at the badges of the other team members to see that they got them. I don't know why this is so difficult for them to figure out or find in the logs when they're in my logs and the other peoples logs.

I've seen this same thing reported about the mapserv at the end of a tf and the tf being completed but no rewards cept the badge elsewhere on these forums, I think it might of been the same one too as the names ring a bell. Should search in these forums for it cause it seems to be a ongoing bug thats cropped up recently.

Had this happen to me a couple of times, too. No help available so it seems the only option is to bite the bullet and adapt to the situation without the merits.

I'm assuming you were my team leader there. (tinkertanker here). I don't think there's really any hope. It seems like they have specific standards to log the events that, even if other valid proof is presented, do not allow them to grant the rewards in our case. Very frustrating of course. My support topic is still open but I think he's tired of talking to me after 7 back and forth replies. If it helps I don't see this as a common pattern with support here. Every other time my issue has been promptly and easily resolved.

Apparently whatever caused us to disconnect after the fight also erased the logs on their side, though they are still present client-side, effectively throwing us back in time a few minutes. We also lost the experience gained during the fight. I noticed this because I leveled from the mob kill on Burkholder and I no longer had the level upon return. The root of the problem (the loss of logs and rollback of our xp/merits/badge) is the very reason they can't validate the issue. Look at my earlier topic "Going back in Time" here for more information on what they told me here. Let me know if you make any headway there. I've pretty much given up.

Maybe we'll run it again come I16!

/bug it. thats is all that can be done. maybe try pm'ing posi or some other dev to.

yeah, very similar issue here. Did a Posi TF and got to the final mission. I disconnected due to the crap EC server issue and then finally got logged back in. We completed the mission and everyone got the merits but me. I TRIPLE checked the log and no merit rewards. I checked my merit total and it was still the same. I sent a petition and was told I got the mertis grrr. Then..I went on to take on a Giant Monster later that day. I looked at my merits before I fought it. After we finished my log said "you received 2 merits". I checked my total and I only received 1!!!! ONE! No use reporting it as it didn't do any good. I just have to like it or lump it and right now I'm lumping but not for long. I think this is part of the lag issue of reporting one thing to CoH databases and we get something else on our end because of latency issues. It stands to reason if I can't type in chat, do an emote, my power toggles are all swirling and you run in place that you don't get proper rewards at times either.

It's not like Hess is a terribly long TF. Just re-run it.

I can see getting mad over not getting credited for a Doc Q TF, but for a 30 min Hess?

What gets logged is apparently not exactly random, but arbitrary. There is a complex series of events that cause logging and queues for logging (it doesn't happen instantly) and it depends at exactly which point you disconnect what's on the log.

They won't accept screenshots and chatlogs because these can be tampered with.

I've had examples where nothing could be done, but also (unexpectedly) one where a disconnect meant that I lost a couple of good IO recipes I got off random rolls (logged back in, no recipes, got the tickets back). They found them on the logs and restored them. I've normally found that after the first form reply, once you actually get through to somebody who knows what they're doing, they're as helpful as they can be.

My feeling is that there are some queues for logging that are too long, and that you've fallen victim to one of these.

Exactly. I wouldn't feel too beat up about it. The GM I dealt with was very polite and as helpful as he was able to be. Any evidence we might provide from our end could well have been tampered with, and it is true that the souvenir can be had if you are not present at mob kill, but come back before the TF is turned in. Of course we all were present and it stinks that we lost credit for whatever reason, but c'est la vie.

I totally feel for you. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I called them <BEEP> after hearing that "...it is not our policy". I would then say to my fellow team members, "Oh I guess their policy is poor customer service."

If I had the power to change one thing about the game it would not be to correct the original TFs or to remove the oldest yet still unresolved bugs or anything like that. It would be to change the "customer no-service" policy to something more attractive than Champions Online or WoW offers.

Indigo, leader of the City of Gaymers

<a leader in the customer service industry>

Remember two things when dealing with CS

1) They really just wanna get rid of your ticket asap, actual work to see through a problem is normally brushed off. The old "bring to higher GM" is to avoid having to their job. Normally this higher GM just explains how they can do nothing with a cut/paste reply.

2) You'd be damn lucky if you get a GM that actually knows what the hell you're talking about.

Example 1:
Ticket Sent: "Contact: Burke" "Mission: Steal a Cape from a Hero" "Problem: Boss did not spawn on villains cape mission"

GM: Hi Can you tell me the contact and name of mission?
Gypsy: **repeats ticket** (Do they read the tickets?)
GM: One Moment (5minutes of silence, no idea why)
GM: Invite me to your team
**You cannot invite enemy to team** (o.O where did this show I was on a hero)
Gypsy: I can't invte you, you're on a hero. This is a villain mission.
GM: One moment (another 2 minutes of silence, hoping he's switching redside)
GM: Invite me to your team
**You cannot invite enemy to team**
Gypsy: *sigh* You need to be on a villain, "Steal a Cape" is NOT a hero mission
GM: One Moment (Another 2 minutes of silence, o.o;; )
GM: Invite me to your team.
GM Joins Team (FINALLY)
GM: Did you destroy the statues? (really? i mean really?)
Gypsy: Yes all objectives cleared, boss not spawning
GM: There are still enemies on the map
Gypsy: This isn't a clear map mission, You only need to destroy the statues. After defeat all ambushes to finish mission.
GM: One moment (Why?? LoL)
GM: Would you like for me to complete this mission? (Now I really wanted to say "No I'm enjoying our conversation it's amazing")
Gypsy: Yes Please
Mission Completed
GM: Is there anything else I can do for you.
**Places GM on Ignore** (I couldn't stand it lol)


Example 2:
Contact: "City Rep" Mission: "Cape Mission(Can't recall the exact name, I don't play blueside much)" Problem: "Group did not spawn around capsule"

GM: Please tell me the name of the contact and mission plz.
Gypsy: *repeats ticket* (lulz)
GM: One Moment (3 minutes pass)
GM: Invite me to your team.
GM Joins Team (Yay, first try, go blue lulz)
GM: One Moment (Bout a minute passes)
GM: You didn't destroy the capsule yet (o.O;; wtf)
Gypsy: Um, yea, I'm suppose to save the capsule not destroy it.
GM: One Moment (Oh if i had 1000 infamy everytime lol)
GM: Would you like for me to complete the mission.........

You get the idea, I honestly don't expect much. I get more GMs who don't have a clue how to play this game. Rarely do I get one that knows what they're talking about. Normally its taken care of in under 5 minutes. I normally just reset or auto complete, here to have fun, not deal with them.

Not much we can do about it, I just hope one day they have it be a req that CS are required to know the dang game.

Gypsy - you were lucky, I've had a GM on a hero while I was on a villain with the flag set to not receive enemy chat

Can't say that I have ever had a bad experience, with an in-game GM, or with Customer Service. My last contact with CS took a week to resolve (there was a weekend in there) every contact made was from a different CS Rep up the chain, they were all courteous, apologetic if they couldn't resolve it and had to escalate.

I took the whole thing in stride, never got irate over the length of time it took. I mean come on, it's a game, not someone working on my car leaving me without transportation. I've had occasions where a GM couldn't resolve the issue in-game. Disappointed? Sure. Furious? Not really. I have more important things in my life to get stressed over.

Save for the mapserve, I've had problems with merit awards not dropping on after some taskforces.

When I petition it I get "merits were awarded". Never mind that I plainly have images showing my merits before and after the TF showing identical amounts and there's nothing in the chat log showing the merit award.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

ROFLAMO someone negative repped me for griping about CS in the SUPPORT forum, where I'm, you know, looking for some SUPPORT!

CS decided to ignore my last posting to them and closed the ticket. This is why I loathe customer service because I rarely get any customer satisfaction from customer service. It's always "tough crap, have fun, keep paying us".

Thank you everyone for the support and suggestions.

And to the person who negative repped me "Your father was a hamster and your mother smelt of elderberries"