75 replies to this topic

[Dirus Nigh]

Some one is trying to monetize a product to make a living. Totally a scam.

[Dee Eight]

tortuousGoddess, on 04 September 2016 - 07:25 AM, said:

Considering the drop rate of caches, "scamming" people at a rate of $7 per 50 caches would be hilariously ineffective. You really have to stretch to cry conspiracy this much over a single dime, but I suppose the bitter forum vets are all about that, as I should have expected.

Not to mention all the FREE caches & Free keys given away in the past two months of events, and with two MC promotions (that also offered free mech bays), and all the free MC from leaderboard personal challenges and now this goofy event...which is enough for either a couple dozen keys or a couple more mech bays... pretty much makes it that its not the majority of the player base who are illiterate or incomprehensible, but the forum complainers themselves. Also the "bitter forum vets" often seem to be people with less than a year old forum account. Razenbitterness above has been here only 6 months.

Edited by Dee Eight, 04 September 2016 - 08:17 AM.

[Dee Eight]

Yeah..scam...right... using a free event key (one of nine I got for my three top-75 finishes on the cyclops leaderboards) and a cache just awarded during a game twenty minutes ago, which had as common's, a C-AMS (worth 100k selling price) and 50 MC, I opened to this 2 million selling price item instead.

[Chagatay]

As it has been stated before, if you have lots of MC and little cbills it is a very good deal. Even if you don't like the boxes, it is an extra 50k cbills every so often.

[smokytehbear]

razenWing, on 04 September 2016 - 04:00 AM, said:

It's about misleading information. It's not about a dollar twenty five.

For emphasis.

Dee Eight, on 04 September 2016 - 09:41 AM, said:

Yeah..scam...right... using a free event key (one of nine I got for my three top-75 finishes on the cyclops leaderboards) and a cache just awarded during a game twenty minutes ago, which had as common's, a C-AMS (worth 100k selling price) and 50 MC, I opened to this 2 million selling price item instead.

Look! Someone won something big one time! Clear proof there's no misleading communication here. Reiterating again, this issue has nothing to do with whether or not the end result for the consumer is a decent value compared to other purchases they could make from this company, it has to do with it not being the value they say it is.

PGI can say however much they want on the forums and Twitter and whatever what the odds are, but when they decide not to do that at the actual point of sale, for months, it looks like incompetence at best, and shady at worst. If you don't see any issue with your company's reputation being on par with a used car salesman out to take advantage of you whenever the opportunity arises, that's fine but I prefer not to have to fact check and research every single thing I buy from them to make sure it is in fact as it seems. Again, I barely lost a dime because of this so monetarily I don't care. It is however another (somewhat significant, for just me personally) blow to their reputation however, and for that people like them and even you should care. Unless of course instead of these threads complaining about PGI sucking at their jobs and scamming us, you'd rather just read threads about the "broken matchmaker" which is really just a stagnant and miniscule player base.

[dario03]

I opened a bunch of caches (mostly from events) before I finally got anything good (mechbay). But since then I had a bit of bad luck for a while but then my last 3 opened got me a day of premium and 2 mechbays. Use this highly detailed information however you like...

Edited by dario03, 04 September 2016 - 10:54 PM.

[CJ Daxion]

I opened 2 crates this weekend.. Got 2 -C MPL's 240k value, sold 120k, I kept them cause i needed them, (srm4 was the other common).. the other crate got me a 100k-Cbill reward..

24 cents had i needed to purhase the keys.. and so far every single crate i have opened, netted me more than 50k the up-opened crates value.


OP: sorry you didn't get a free mech, from your free crate, opened with your free key..

Ted Wayz, on 03 September 2016 - 04:37 PM, said:

Hey, at least when you are sitting at the table you get free drinks.

You know going to the bar and paying for your drinks and NOT gambling typically ends you with more money in your pocket.. Just saying..



But if your spending money, i don't call it free... So a little tip, wander around the slot machine area.. and pull a level on a 25 cent slot on occasion.. still get the drinks.. Good for after you lost all your money at the tables lol. Just remember to keep tipping the waitress.

smokytehbear, on 04 September 2016 - 10:43 PM, said:

PGI can say however much they want on the forums and Twitter and whatever what the odds are, but when they decide not to do that at the actual point of sale, for months, it looks like incompetence at best, and shady at worst.

Are you telling me, you had no clue what the odds were on certain things before they color coded them? Maybe you just started playing, i dunno, but seeing how they have had many reward click boxes in the past during events, for someone to think everything was 1 in 8, comparing those items, the only explanation i can think of is they were completely delusional.

I saw my first crate, and thought yea right, i'm gonna get a free mech first try.. But what the heck the crate and key were free.. Instead i got 160k worth of parts i could use..

Edited by CJ Daxion, 04 September 2016 - 11:14 PM.

[smokytehbear]

CJ Daxion, on 04 September 2016 - 10:59 PM, said:

Are you telling me, you had no clue what the odds were on certain things before they color coded them? Maybe you just started playing, i dunno, but seeing how they have had many reward click boxes in the past during events, for someone to think everything was 1 in 8, comparing those items, the only explanation i can think of is they were completely delusional.

I saw my first crate, and thought yea right, i'm gonna get a free mech first try.. But what the heck the crate and key were free.. Instead i got 160k worth of parts i could use..

Yep, that's pretty much exactly what I'm saying. There were plenty of posts about it when it came out of people thinking it was a scam. I mean, it is a scam, but for different reasons. They thought it was a scam because the odds were wrong, when really it was a scam because the label was wrong, and by wrong I mean not there at all.

If you weren't among the people who thought that there was a 1:8 chance of getting any item, that's awesome. You're smarter than most of us here. The idea is, this wisdom shouldn't be required, and PGI's response to it has made it clear that it (and by extension, honesty with your customers) is not an important issue to them.

The bigger question, is why are people defending this? Not specifically to the guy I quoted, but really, what benefit do people receive for pointing out that they knew about this ahead of time, and if you didn't, then you're an idiot. If it were asking for a major overhaul of mechanics, I'd buy the allocation of resources argument but the numbers are already in the freaking code. Could not possibly take more than an hour for someone to just literally have that number displayed on the individual item when you preview the cache.

[Hunka Junk]

Do carnivals, casinos, and lotteries post the odds of winning?

And back when you thought that it was 1:8 odds, how much money did you spend on keys?

$50 or $.50?

And, whatever you happened to lose you will rapidly recoop by turning in your crates for 50k a piece.

A bird in the hand. That's wisdom.

[smokytehbear]

Hunka Junk, on 05 September 2016 - 05:37 AM, said:

Do carnivals, casinos, and lotteries post the odds of winning?

And back when you thought that it was 1:8 odds, how much money did you spend on keys?

$50 or $.50?

And, whatever you happened to lose you will rapidly recoop by turning in your crates for 50k a piece.

A bird in the hand. That's wisdom.

Not usually, absolutely, and usually though it's a bit harder to find admittedly. All respectively to your first question.

Casinoes are to my knowledge, required to post odds of winning for anything that isn't well known or strongly agreed upon. This is like slot machines and special house games. Some things that are more well known like poker or blackjack aren't really required, but I guarantee you no floor manager would refuse to answer your question if you had any complaints, concerns, or curiosity regarding odds of winning, how often the decks get shuffled or replaced, or so on.

Lotteries are a bit harder to describe specifically because places to buy tickets are more common. Also there's the small issue that they tend to sidestep some rules, being in a position of authority. For instance, in my state there is a lottery despite casino gambling being illegal. Guess it helps to know/be the guys making the rules on that sort of stuff. Nevertheless, within 30 seconds of visiting my state lottery website for the first time ever I found a page to buy tickets and right there adjacent to it was another page clear as day discussing odds of winning. Everything from the jackpot down to the lowest prize in simple, straightforward ratios like we all learned in middle school.

Regarding a carnival, I'm sure they have to prove in some way that they are in fact running a legitimate shop to the authorities, but I'm also just as sure as anyone that they do their very best to swindle as much as they can. Like I had said earlier in the thread, if that's ok with some people then I guess that's their view, but I would really rather be considered a solid business than a carnival trying to scam it's customers, if it were me running the show. Those are the same customers by the way that have been quite forgiving of said company's objectively terrible decisions in running their service.

For the rest of the post, no, I barely spent anything. Probably $.50. I don't even care that I got bad items from the cache, and I'd feel the same if I had even won mechs. It's entirely possible to be angry at the principle of something without having personally lost a great deal because of it.

Simple thought experiment: You go to buy a candy bar and the sign says 50% off, so now it's only $.50. When you take it to the register however, you find out after some math-whiz pretax price calculation, that they charged you $.75 for it. Only upon being confronted, the clerk says that the extra quarter is for the "sale calculation fee" because he had to adjust the computer for that barcode earlier. End result was you still got your product for technically cheaper than you normally would, but would you not feel deceived? What if instead it was a larger price, like a dinner, a car, or a house? What if you knew these guys were literally doing this to every customer, across a whole range of similar products?

Edited by smokytehbear, 06 September 2016 - 12:21 AM.

[JC Daxion]

smokytehbear, on 06 September 2016 - 12:20 AM, said:

tons of stuff

I just dunno how to respond really.. Just by going with what they charge for things, and looking at the items in the crate, it was very clear that my chance of getting a mech was far less than getting a large laser. The key cost 14 cents. If the crates were 1 in 100 or 200 to get in the first place.. Sure, i could see that being the case how people are confused. But every match on the winning team gets one, on top of all the free ones they gave away?


Even still, supply crates, are the best bang for your MC buck you can spend in this game. What you get might be random, but in the end, it is even better in most cases than buying an MC mech at 50% off when you add it up. So again i ask, how is the best deal in MWO a scam? Is it cause what you are paying for is random?

Besides it only lasted one month before they color coded it.. and just about every single post about this being a scam has been by people that didn't even buy a key. I guess that is par for the course though in today's F2P world.

[smokytehbear]

JC Daxion, on 06 September 2016 - 12:46 AM, said:

So again i ask, how is the best deal in MWO a scam? Is it cause what you are paying for is random?

Because it isn't what it claimed to be. It can still be the best deal in the game, and not as good as a deal as it is presented.

Edited by smokytehbear, 06 September 2016 - 01:41 AM.

[PAQUERA]

No scam. U can or u can not buy keys. Ur free to buy or not to buy keys. If u dont want to buy keys, u can sell the crate for 50kcbills.

IMHO crates are a good idea. if u want to bet, go to buy keys, if u dont want to buy keys, dont buy keys and win 50kcbill for free

U
always
win

[kesmai]

PAQUERA, on 06 September 2016 - 12:59 AM, said:

No scam. U can or u can not buy keys. Ur free to buy or not to buy keys. If u dont want to buy keys, u can sell the crate for 50kcbills.

IMHO crates are a good idea. if u want to bet, go to buy keys, if u dont want to buy keys, dont buy keys and win 50kcbill for free

U
always
win

This.

[Captain Stiffy]

This is horrible, I'm never opening another one. EVERY SINGLE TIME get the crappiest item in the list. No more scam for me thanks.

[tenchugecko]

I wann play mechwarrior, not "slot machine".
its a casino.