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I tried to post this on the main site's forum and had great difficulty doing so. It's a long read, I put a lot of thought and time into this, and I just want this seen by someone who cares about the game as much as I do. I know this Forum is pretty much dead and has been for about a year, but I've got my fingers crossed.

=note this was originally written on Joymax's official DMO forum-

First of all, I'd like to say that I love this game. I've poured countless hours into it (and money at this point) over the course of three or four years now. Digimon Masters Online captures very closely the feelings that I associate with the show I fell in love with as a child. That being said, the game, at least in its global version, has some flaws. I will itemize each aspect that needs to be addressed and discuss each of those aspects in as much detail as I can.

In no particular order here they are as follows:



1. The Site Content is weak and/or full of errors (FB page, Twitter, Main Site)

All of these do a good job of communicating when events are happening and when sales are going on in cash shops. These things are all very important, but it is very obvious that not much care is taken when creating the content. I have noticed bad grammar and misspellings frequently when observing the content. I know it may be the case that English is not the primary language of the content creator, but having a native English speaker to review the content before it's posted would definitely cut down on this issue.




Take this image from a FB post back in March. Everything is fine up until you get to the last sentence. It reads "Always remember that one's greatness weakness, lies in giving up." It should read "Always remember that one's greatest weakness lies in giving up." In recent events it would appear there has been some improvement, but it should be the standard already. I would take a screenshot of one of the maintenance and patch notices if the main site was up, but it is currently down.

The Global version's main language is English, yet those who are in charge of posting content about the game don't seem to have English as their native language. If the content that is released is either written or at least reviewed or edited by a native English speaker it would improve the quality of that content. Content that is reviewed and edited by a native English speaker would be easier to understand for players and it would appear more professional because it would demonstrate that your content creators take care with the content their producing to make sure that content is of the highest quality.



2. There is not enough communication between the players and those who run the game

What is currently being done well is actually addressing that server downtime and connectivity issues are happening. At this time there is a great deal of connectivity issues going on and the event from last month that should have ended is still running. Players are also unable to acces www.joymax.com/dmo at this time and there has been nothing posted on Facebook or Twitter about the status of the site and why the event is still going. Players are in the dark and want answers that they're just not receiving. The forum, the Facebook page, and Twitter are all possible outlets to relay information about the game's status if they were all regularly updated. However, the forum appears to be in a neglected state (the most recent posts by administrators are two years old and haven't been taken down yet), and the FB and Twitter pages only seem to be reserved for Event Information and Server notices. In fact, we as players have no idea who to contact, if anyone, of any issues we're having in general. The customer care service that we're supposed to be able to use I'm sure is underutilized. Also, there is no way of knowing who the current GMs and whether or not they're online (aside from adding them to the friendslist, but that would require knowing their names) are and how to contact them in times of need.

We are in need of a reliable means to communicate with those in charge of the game. if we don't know who is in charge or how to get in touch with them players will get frustrated with whatever issues they're having. Eventually, that frustration will probably lead the player to quit the game because they will feel like the GMs and whoever else don't care about them. Regular, reliable communication with the players builds trust by showing that the company cares about its players which give those players a better incentive to keep playing when problems come up in the future.

3. The sites are not maintained well enough and the forums are neglected

The main site does a great job at providing basic information about the game and current events. The FB page does the same as well as the Twitter page. However, where all of these sites fail is providing something beyond the basic information to players. For example, having a page dedicated all of the Digimon currently available in the game, all of their skills, damages, cooldown timers, where they can be obtained. Or if that's too much you can make a FB post showcasing a Digimon and provide all of that information in the post. However, the fact remains that that information isn't available through any means on the official pages. It is also the case that is it apparent that the pages themselves are reviewed regularly enough.

For example the FB page has pages that are either redundant or don't contain any content.




I am currently viewing one "Welcome" page, but I have no idea what purpose it serves. There is a second "Welcome" page, but it is a blank page. The Videos section is also empty and the Forum has moderators that haven't logged in three years. However, people are still posting there even though the moderators are not there. I'm not even sure most players even know that a forum exists on the FB page because it's embedded in the "More" dropdown menu. I've been playing this game for four years and today is the first time I've ever seen that forum.

And speaking of forums, the forum on the main site where this post is being created doesn't appear to be well maintained either regarding administrator posts (See 1).  Why is it the case that the Christmas event post from 2013 is still pinned? Why is it that no one seems to care that posts that are three or four years old are still being commented on randomly? It doesn't look like there is a great deal of care concerning the forums.

Forums are very important for building a community. Right now the most active community forum is a forum dedicated to creating botting tools to use in the game. That is a problem. That site is also probably the second best with respect to quality of information available about the game with a fan created wiki being the first. Joymax has nothing to do with either of those and should be embarrassed that a community that violates its terms of use is better maintained than its own community.

If I were Joymax, I would do a complete overhaul of the forum or at least encourage players to join in and have an active presence within. Players in games like this enjoy seeking out communities where they can be social and share things about the game or their lives and know that other players will do the same. They can't do that in a forum that is, for all intents and purposes "dead," because it lacks traffic and regular moderation. Other successful games out there like League of Legends use their community and forum to help the game thrive, and as a result the game thrives. Player and fanworks are showcased, moderators and administrators as well as developers all connect with and talk with the players, and Riot acknowledges widespread/common player concerns regularly.  If Joymax could imitate at least a fraction of what Riot does, it would see a lot of growth and expansion of their playerbase because the overarching sentiment that you hear from players everywhere is that Joymax simply doesn't care about its players. By investing in forum and community development, they can begin to do that.

4. The item drop cap is and experience cap are problematic

Back in September of 2012 Joymax held an “Ask the Developers” event where they took a series of questions from the players and had the developers answer them a month later. I really liked this event and I wish Joymax would have continued with doing them (perhaps making one Ask the Developers event each year or every couple of months). The answers they provided were all very insightful and useful (and a rare instance that showed players that Joymax did care about them). One of those questions was about the item drop cap issue because it is a point of major contention in the game still, three years later but I think it's worse now than back then. Here is what they said about the item drop cap.



I'd like to address their concern about the increase in bots if the drop cap was removed. At this moment there are a great deal of botters in the game. There is a large community of botters actually, and they have the most active Digimon Masters related community on the internet. They support each other and give each other valuable information about the game the Joymax doesn't provide (like how the accessory system works, how raids work, locations to find which mercenary eggs, quest help, and how to obtain certain rare items like Backup Disks and Jogress Chips). The botters feel that they have to bot in order to be successful BECAUSE the in-game economy is almost entirely reliant on real money. It takes an average player days or weeks to save up enough in-game currency and materials to try to obtain a 4/5 or 5/5 Digimon because they go from anywhere between 11T-40T per guaranteed mercenary egg. Your average player can only make, at best, 1T a day IF they're above Tamer Lv55 and IF they have a Digimon that is capable of farming materials they can sell in the marketplace. Most players think that if you don't have any real money to use in the game, your only option is botting to be able to even to try to compete with the players that do. That feeling is a problem.

Back when I first began playing this game I had no idea botting was possible, but I did quickly realize that having money would make my time easier in the game. 3/5 Digimon were difficult to train (still are if you don't have decent accessories), not very cost effective, and were about as strong as your starter Digimon. Archives were also extremely expensive as they went between 3T-4T (they're still around that price years later), evoluters were expensive and difficult to obtain, and farming is difficult when you're forced to fight Digimon that are at or around your level when your Digimon just isn't that strong. It made me want to quit playing because I felt so limited by everything. I broke down and got a debit card for the specific purpose of buying silk just so I could give myself a chance of getting ahead in the game. If I hadn't spent money back then, I wouldn't be playing now because I would have quit.

KDMO doesn't have a drop cap, and surprisingly enough the price of the items in its marketplace are about the same price. I am also aware of the fact that KDMO has botters too. I've seen those botters for myself, and they're not as prevalaent in the beginning areas of the game as the developers think. They are just as present in other areas of the game too, however.

That all being said, I feel that the presence of the drop cap is more harmful to the health of the game overall. More people quit over the frustration associated with it than those players who quit because they get upset over people who bot. Not only that, the botters do stabilize the economy to a degree. They flood the market with materials that every player needs, namely Data and Merc Eggs. And because there are so many, the price of those items drops which makes them more readily available to players that could not otherwise farm them BECAUSE of the drop cap.

On a related note, the experience point cap is unhealthy. The highest leveled players of the game are the only players that have access to an area where it is possible to feasibly train a Digimon to Lv99. This area is rather difficult to level up in, however, because the Digimon in this area have the highest health values of any other wild Digimon in the game. It takes three times as long or longer to kill one of these Digimon than it does to kill a Digimon that a player had been leveling on previously. These maps were designed with using Mega, Burst Mode, or Jogress Digimon. The Spirit System suffers the most from this as well as players who don't have access to accessories that they can, for the most part, only get from other players because it’s not possible to compete in raids to get Shiny High-Powered Arcane Quad Core Rings and Necklaces without already owning them.

The Spirit System suffers from the level cap because in order to train them to Lv99, the player is forced to try to make them survive in an environment that they were not intended for. Even Digimon that have type advantages struggle with the Digimon in the Server Continent Pyramid map. The only two spirit Digimon that have attributes are Agnimon and Vritramon, but even they won't survive in Server Continent Pyramid unless the player has either decently enchanted their stats or has a Shiny High-Powered Arcane Quad Core Ring and Necklace that is fully upgraded. Without those enhancements to their stats, Spirit Digimon have the same strength as Armor Digimon, which are only slightly stronger than Digimon that are Ultimate level. It is the case that a player must be fairly wealthy and be at least Tamer Lv75 if they even want to try to benefit from the Spirit system. In KDMO, this probably isn't even a concern because tamers of all levels can try to raise a Spirit Digimon, or any other Digimon they choose, to Lv99 in a variety of different places without having to worry about obtaining exceptionally rare items that are controlled by the most elite players of the game.

If the developers insist on keeping the item drop cap for the sake of not harming beginner areas, then they should at the very least be willing to remove the experience point cap. That way, even if the botters bot in beginner areas they wouldn't be able to effect the in-game economy (even though it's actually people with real money that affect the in-game economy the most with cash shop items) and players would be able to fully appreciate the spirit system. That would translate to more sales of the Bokomon Books (which I assume would mean more profits from more cash purchases).  



5. There needs to be a better process for reporting botters

Right now in the terms of use, the only way to report someone you suspect is botting is to record them doing so (catch them via video). I'm not sure if Joymax is aware of the fact that most people don't have a means to be able to do record video of their gameplay. Secondly, most players aren't even aware of how to report botters even if they do manage to catch them doing so. Thirdly, There are not enough GMs to effectively deal with the number of people who bot in this game. To fix these issues, I have a few suggestions.

If botting is such a major concern at the moment, all the players need to know. They need to know that Joymax is concerned about botters and that concern needs to be displayed prominently on their main website and on the Facebook page as well as the method to report suspected botters. Right now no one is really afraid to bot because they know that Joymax doesn't have a good policy at finding them and catching them. If people knew Joymax was finding and punishing players for using bots then that would create a sense of fear in those thinking about doing it. Right now there is no fear of consequences. Joymax needs to take a stand and say where everyone can see that they're starting a campaign to end botting in the game and get players on board to help. It doesn't do the game any good if the people primarily responsible for reporting a broken rule don't feel the need to report a rule breaker when they see a rule being broken. This fear can be created by simply creating a banner about botting or rule violation on the main page with a link to the method of reporting the person breaking the rule which means that the method for communicating that a rule is being broken needs to be accessed easily and needs to be known widely. Knowing how to report someone for botting needs to be common knowledge for all players in the game, and frankly at this time it is not.

As for catching these botters, it may not be so easy. Most of them use a script that uses tab to change targets and checks RGB values to see if that target is one that should be attacked. If it is, the script will press the key responsible for attacking with a normal attack or skill and will repeat doing so at a short, random interval until the targets health is gone. At which point the script will repeatedly press the key required for picking up dropped items and then script restarts and tabs to another target. This behavior can easily be replicated by a human player, which is why it is so difficult to catch, and some bots are so sophisticated that they can pretend to behave like a human player. However, bots are not able to respond with text. If it’s possible to somehow force the player to open their text entry (which would immediately cause the bot to stop moving because all of the keystrokes would be in the chat box and therefore not executable) or require them to respond to a GM's request that may immediately validate the use of a bot. It is also the case that most botters use a program called Blue-Eye Macro which runs alongside the game and is responsible for inputting the key commands and executing the scripts. Detecting botters would also require more present GMs. I'm not sure why there aren't more GMs present in the game, but if they really wanted to stop botters they would pay for them. The price to hire a full time GM vs the price associated with losing hundreds of potential customers may not be so equal in short term, but it would definitely be worth it in the long run. Besides, Joymax wouldn't have to use too much money on trying to develop a bot detecting script (potentially hiring an expensive software engineer to create software that could, in time, be bypassed by creative botters anyway).