Spiral Knights - Another customer being rather peeved?

Another customer being rather peeved?

33 replies [Last post]

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 00:53

Martinsen

So basically, if you're ST00PID like me!

You waste 80 k CE on silver keys, and open a BUNCH of lock boxes!

Now according to the current worth of 100 CE, which is 6,5 k atm;

80 k CE equals about 5,2 million crowns. And once the priced drops, it would've been even more, but that doesn't matter now.

Like I said, I wasted 5,2 million crowns on lockboxes. For what purpose? To get either a wolver tail, or a prismatic halo. Maybe even BOTH, if lucky.

I got none of those. Not even a vitakit. Go me!

So let's say I wasted those 5,2 million on a prismatic halo which happened to be put out in the AH only two weeks later!

I'd probably have what I want, by now.

So yeah, I love this game for being so mean to it's poor customers D:

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 02:56

Thycon

Well...

Well, you did use up all that CE with the knowledge that there's a VERY slight chance of you obtaining said shiny item. It's based on luck and it seems you weren't lucky enough to get anything good out of those lockboxes. It's not necessarily being "mean" to you, just the odds not being in your favor makes that tail oh so harder to catch.

Anyway, I hope you got a little something something you'd like to use on one of your armors and best of luck on your future unlocks (If they'll be any more :P)

[Thycon]

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 03:35

Silphius

What knowledge are you

What knowledge are you talking about? Any knowledge gained is from players like Martinsen trying out the new system that we knew nothing about when it was introduced. The gist of what was revealed was something along the lines of "some items are more rare than others!".

I realize that most experiences in this game are really subjective, but even objectively the guy has a point. They introduced a way to acquire items via gambling/luck, then later introduced another method that was "better" or at least way more reliable. It's similar to apple releasing the G3 Iphone for $599, then offering a better version for $399 a relatively short time later, but at least they owned up to it and gave $100 store credit as compensation.

I think the whole gambling system in games is ethically dubious anyway.

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 04:42

Martinsen

@Thycon

@Thycon, Of course I was aware of the fact that there was no guarantee I'd be lucky. I spent my 80 k CE with my full five, so to speak. It's not like I regret it either. It was a fun experience, and now I know better than anyone else, probably, that those items are SO RARE.

Well thanks for reading anyway.

Hope it will make you guys think twice before you waste .. xD

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 04:44

Pawn

OMG@silphius

OMG, that gambling comic was HILARIOUS!

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 04:48

Blitzwingoo

I think the whole gambling

I think the whole gambling system in games is ethically dubious anyway.

The funny thing is in real gambling they legally have to tell you the odds of winning. In SK they refuse to tell you the odds....probably so they can change the odds any time they want.

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 07:29

Bindi-Badgi

This...

I am pretty convinced that the drop rate on wings and halos is far less than 1% if not zero, despite developers assuring us that they can drop - after myself and many others having collectively opened many hundreds (probably thousands) of lockboxes, you'll forgive me if I don't take their word for it.

Gambling to aquire items without knowing the odds feels like a scam i'm afraid.

@ Thycon - we spent that CE on gambling for those items because we were told that that was the only way of acquiring them.

If had known I could have saved all the cr & CE i spent opening boxes and just bought the items I wanted at auction then i would never have opened a single box. Now instead of having the wings I am looking for I have a ton of maid headbands and other undesirable crap, most of which is worth less than 25% of the key I bought to aquire it, not to mention having to compete with all the other accessories on the AH to make any return whatsoever, I already lost thousands of cr in listing fees at the weekend as noone bid on the lowend stuff as they were all too busy bidding on rares. The only saving grace was my divine canteen (my only really valuable find in 100 or so boxes) which was heavily competed for by people who (I assume) were outbid on the rare stuff.

I could have saved myself the hassle and just paid 5+ mil for them instead of buying keys. I, like the OP, am pretty gutted after the weekends auctions.

Publish the drop rates, or give me a damn good reason why you shouldn't.

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 05:53

Silphius

Not to mention that this is a

Not to mention that this is a game available to minors, who are otherwise forbidden to gamble (ToS says 13+).

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 06:17

Kickthebucket

and if somebody found one of

and if somebody found one of these thing i think there is a good chance they would tell it here on the forums wouldn't they?

i still don't like the lockbox system but then again as long as it stays the way it is now i'm never going to open one. (i actualy wonder why people even bother? i mean all the crap you want you can allready buy in the AH and now the GM put the most rare things on it themselves -> crownsink) there's to much stuff in 1 box the chance you get what you want is next to nothing.

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 10:16

Algol-Sixty

80kCE is only about 107

80kCE is only about 107 silver keys and there are something like 37 different accessories. Even if all the accessories had an equal chance of appearing, you would still have less than a 3% chance of getting a halo. The chance that you wouldn't get that halo that you were looking for out of 107 draws is 5%. That isn't being that unlucky. However, the ringers have said that some are rarer than others. If the chance of getting any of the three rarest accessories is 1/10th that of the most common, then the chance that you wouldn't get any of the three rarest out of 107 lockboxes is (363/370)^107 = 42%. I suspect the chance of getting the rare accessories is much worse than 1/10th the chance of getting the common ones.

Normally, people are willing to pay a large premium to get exactly what they want rather than take a gamble on getting them. What the price of these rare accessories sold for on the AH tells me is that people value them far far less than what OOO charges for them via lockboxes. They value them less, even taking into account that they are too rare to show up in any quantity from lockboxes.

If OOO was smart, they would drop the price of silver keys significantly because that would likely cause far more silver keys to be sold, more than making up for the lower per-unit revenue. They are on the far right of the curves shown on the Profit Maximization wikipedia page.

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 10:21

#10

Beans

I dropped this link in

I dropped this link in another thread some while ago, but I figure it fits here too:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/09/22/nexon-ncsoft-refuse-to-fully-coo...

Tue, 11/15/2011 - 10:35

#11

Bindi-Badgi

Trouble is, if they acknowledged that the system is broken - as the auction's very existence and final prices seem to suggest, and they significantly dropped the price of silver keys you would have some serious outcry from all those like myself that have sunk a lot of ce into them. I for one would expect some kind of refund for having over paid into a broken system...it's not likely.

What is more likely is OOO using the final bid prices of the rare items to recalculate the drop rate o those rare items and stealth patch, but when people suddenly start pulling halos and wings every other day you will get a similar backlash from those that opened boxes pre-patch.

Even more likely is that they will not change anything to do with lockboxes at all. In fact they will probably just add more essential shadow key like item to access new content to encourage more gambling whilst possibly holding more impromptu crown sink auctions for super rare accessories that they pretend can be found in lockboxes but never have been.

Meanwhile desperate players will continue to open lockboxes and continue to be screwed over whilst drowning in maid headbands and weeping quietly when they realise they have no money to bid the very items they were looking for when they appear at the last minute on the AH...

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 00:33

#12

Martinsen

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 00:44

#13

Iaena

This would be why I have >40

This would be why I have >40 lockboxes just sitting in my inventory. I'm not a huge gambler...

I would however like to know exactly how many lockboxes have been opened at this point (though I doubt anyone remembers everything that was in them).

I wonder how I could advertise such an endeavor... and if anyone would actually take the time to put the data together in a cohesive picture.

Then again considering the likelihood that ooo WILL stealth patch in some way makes any data mining we do in this community pretty worthless.

Huh, I just talked myself out of this idea... nm, go on about your day :)

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 00:46

#14

Martinsen

Well, this is why we can't

Well, this is why we can't have nice things I guess.

But; if you opened 100 lock boxes yourself, you would probably be able to calculate the chance of getting the rares u: ?? Idk lol.

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 01:51

#15

Silphius

The thing is, "serious

The thing is, "serious outcry" doesn't mean anything. Like with the occupy haven movement (which lasted what, a day?) the player base has already shown to have the attention span of a goldfish.

The people who I saw organizing it buckled in a matter of hours and were sporting Snarby gear not even a few days (hours?) later. Protesting has no effect unless you can stop people from giving OOO income by buying CE, which nobody has shown willing to do. Even though I'm ranting about it here, I myself have been hypocritical enough to join a shadow lair run when I was invited.

So, except maybe the people in this thread (which is like 0.0033% of all players) and some who read this thread everyone will just straight up take it. OOO will just wait till things pass over. Personally, I'm just going to bide my time and see if I can have fun in other ways. And when I run out of options I'll go play other games like Skyrim for a few months.

I stopped buying energy after the whole shadow key thing anyway.

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 03:25

#16

Bindi-Badgi

Bottom line - I/we were lied to.

They told us that the only way to get accessories was to open lockboxes.

We opened lots of lockboxes but soon realised that noone was getting the super rare items.

We stop opening as many lockboxes out of frustration, general opinion is that these rares have simply not been seeded yet.

OOO introduces shadow keys to encourage more openings, people open lots of lockboxes - still no super rares.

People rage over shadow keys, OOO sell keys at boost, we stop buying silver keys and buy shadow keys instead.

I make a thread about these super rares, asking if they have actually been seeded. OOO assures us they have been available all along and that they are indeed rarer than most accessories but give no figure regarding drop rates.

Shadow keys stop being sold at boost, we start opening more lockboxes, the rate of shadow key drops appears to be higher (only my own experience).

Still not one super rare confirmed to exist in game.

OOO suddenly and without warning put all the thus far never been seen accessories up for auction.

People who had been engaging in what they thought to be the ONLY method of obtaining these items find themselves unable to compete in these auctions as thier money is all tied up in slow moving equity (junk accessories). The super rich and players that werent perhaps opening lockboxes anymore swoop in and win the auctions.

I am a sad panda. I could not raise enough cr at short notice to secure the wings I wanted...

People rage open lockboxes after losing the auctions, still no super rares.

So far the only people I have seen sporting wings are the 3 who bought them direct from OOO - these were aquired without having to open a single lockbox.

I have spent enough ce on opening lockboxes to have afforded to outbid for the prismatics, but i spent it opening boxes because I was under the impression that that was the ONLY way to find them.

So I have been lied to and I feel stupid for having bought into it. At this point the only thing that will appease me is finding a set of prismatic wings in the mail...lol like that'll ever happen...

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 03:27

#17

Silphius

"At this point the only thing

"At this point the only thing that will appease me is finding a set of prismatic wings in the mail."

Which isn't going to happen. Then they'd have to do that for every player who's spent huge amounts of energy opening lockboxes.

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 03:33

#18

Bindi-Badgi

I know that silly :-/ the odds of that happening are about the same as me opening a lockbox and finding them, i.e. ZERO.

Unfortunatly the reality is that we have all been beta testing OOO's random number generator with our wallets. I feel dirty and used...

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 03:35

#19

Bindi-Badgi

Oops

Double post

/derp

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 04:12

#20

Martinsen

Yeah well, we can't expect

Yeah well, we can't expect them to give us back all our money. The fact that I chose to gamble like I did, is nothing more than my own fault. :/

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 04:23

#21

Bindi-Badgi

Yeah I know, but we gambled to get those cool things because that was our only option at the time.

I knew exactly what I was doing, and I honestly don't expect to get any response to this, let alone my money back.

My plan now is just to stockpile cr in the hope that they will do another auction like the one at the weekend - and if they do I will be ready for it this time as I refuse to waste anymore time or ce opening boxes.

Shameless plug - If anyone is looking for the more common accessories then hit me up ingame, I have 80+ of them to sell...I will put up a list on the bazaar at some point.

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 04:34

#22

Martinsen

dont happen to have a wolver

dont happen to have a wolver tail l: ?

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 04:43

#23

Bindi-Badgi

Lol no sorry - you would have seen it up for auction if I did...

Notable items include a dusky scarf, a ghostly aura, a heavy Mohawk, side blades...plus semi desirables like v vents, glasses, flowers etc...

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 06:36

#24

Martinsen

Do you have a picture of the

Do you have a picture of the scarf? o:

AND I KNOW THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS, subject changed sooo bad.

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 06:50

#25

Bindi-Badgi

No, I don't have a pic - at work atm, will upload one later if I have time. You can preview it using spiralspy, it's a grey scarf with two black stripes at the front - looks great with bombhead masks...

I bought it recently to go on a heavenly iron helm, but then discovered that the wiki is in fact wrong and that helm only has front and top slots (wiki says top & back - Doh!) - scarf is helmet back, even though the detail is at the front :-/

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 12:23

#26

Yagballs

Atleast TF2's Mannco Crates

Atleast TF2's Mannco Crates show each and every item's drop rate.

I'm positive that there were no wings / halos / dapper combos etc. in the lockboxes all along. It's a clear sign of scamming. Super rare accessories? Some things are rarer than the others? Yeah right.

Way to go, Nick.

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 12:41

#27

Beans

Taken from the comment

Taken from the comment section on the article I linked,

"As a former employee of a certain company that used "RMT" for goods online I can say that the payout %'s for top tier items are set ridiculously low. Like low enough that it MIGHT happen once per server a year. All you have to do is set the chance to open it to something like 0.0000000000001% and then you can tag the item in the shop as containing that item because ...yes it will in fact drop....you just won't ever see it happen in your characters lifetime.

Yet we set them up and watched as 80% of our profits came in from that very item that contained one amazing item and then 5 or 6 terrible trash items."

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 13:15

#28

Bopp

maybe there should be a Haven Country Club

In the real world, there are exclusive clubs, such as country clubs. In these safe spaces, rich people can discuss their problems with butlers, with broken ski lifts in Swiss resorts, etc., without any poor people around. You see, poor people might be offended by such talk, because they are just trying to pay their mortgages, put food on the table, etc.

Actually, it is my understanding that even in these exclusive clubs, the rich do not discuss specific money gains and losses, such as losing 5.2 million dollars on a stock speculation. It is considered bad taste. I guess if you have the resources to play at that level, then you are expected to accept your wins and losses with quiet dignity.

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 17:12

#29

Blitzwingoo

All you have to do is set the

All you have to do is set the chance to open it to something like 0.0000000000001% and then you can tag the item in the shop as containing that item because ...

If the odds of getting a super rare in SK is something 0.0000000000001% like in the example above, no wonder why they refuse to tell us the drop rates! That's 1 in 1000 Trillion (I don't even know what comes after trillions, which is after billions). That's worse odds than winning any real life lottery which is between 1 in 14 million to 623 million depending on the lottery. When the odds are about 2 million times the chance of winning the hardest real life lottery, I don't think you can reasonably say there's a "chance" anymore.....I would use words more closer to "scam". I say it's pretty unethical to not tell us the odds....it'd be a different story if they did and people decided to try anyways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottery#Probability_of_winning

Wed, 11/16/2011 - 17:36

#30

King-Tinkinzar

Why did you even spend all

Why did you even spend all that? Have you no power to retract your actions?

Thu, 11/17/2011 - 02:16

#31

Martinsen

DERP

It's not like I don't have any self-control. It's just that I prefer spending real cash on a game, (supporting it, unlike other people, is also a way of saying it) instead of running dungeons ALL DAY LONG and make a 4 k profit from a jelly run which takes one hour to finish l:

I've probably spent about ... oh I don't know, 1000 bucks in this game so far? And I don't have a problem with doing so, because I did it over time. It didn't affect my irl economy at all. I'm one of those who consider themselves a real customer of this game, and I am one of the few who keeps this thing running.

So please, do not question my way of playing the game |:

Thu, 11/17/2011 - 03:27

#32

Silphius

I agree that when you're

I agree that when you're financially comfortable you can make the comparison of your time vs money. If 1 hour at your job = 1 month of grinding in SK, it's not a hard decision to pay $50 so you don't have to spend 95% of your free time grinding in this game. The more you play, the more often you'll make this comparison.

"I'm one of those who consider themselves a real customer of this game, and I am one of the few who keeps this thing running."

However, don't become elitist or get a sense of false entitlement, you're not alone in financially supporting the game, there is no way of saying "you're one of the few" because frankly nobody but OOO knows who spends what (lots of people spend money, myself included). Besides that, spending money is only limited to the Ce you buy, you are not buying or signing an SLA or QoS contract by buying things, OOO owes you nothing but the energy you bought.

You are also not better than any other player here, because free players are themselves content and without them SK would be boring. Even the most fantastic MMORPG on the planet would go unplayed if it was a desolate wasteland in terms of playerbase. This game would not "run" without them.

Thu, 11/17/2011 - 03:32

#33

Martinsen

Derp, that's not how I meant

Derp, that's not how I meant it at all, but okay.

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Another customer being rather peeved?