Beware Transmuting Outfit Pouches.

[Darkwingz]

9 minutes ago, Hanakoi said:

I fell into the same trap... It's basically like an RNG box, but worse. :[

I tried to get the Moonlight outfit and only got a fabric in return... 

 

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of costumes were removed from the ability to salvage (same with gems) because bots would farm the fabric, say like the ones in Jadestone.

 

Since NCSoft NA is based on the West Coast of the U.S., it would be under the jurisdiction of U.S. statutes. When in the process of transmutation, it says, "Success!", and the recipient receives one fabric. That is indeed a failure, not a success, because the consumer is expecting an outfit in a scenario of success. Wouldn't this be a violation of Section 43 of the Lanham Act, which states: 

 

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1125

"Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which-- is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person's goods, services, or commercial activities, shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act."

 

The costume prices now are a bit heavy in my opinion. It's a decent price if say the user is playing with one character. But then say if you want the same costume on many other characters, that is very expensive (since there is no account bound or mailing ability). And to also include the value into transmutation, which any user can do if there is an outfit available for salvaging, that is insanely expensive and not cost-effective at all! 

 

If it was indeed a "bug" of the tool-tip or not (uh oh, conspiracy theory! :B), that really should have been checked before launched because ultimately, costumes are the number one profit-garnering items in the Hongmoon Store, so transmutation has to be in the equation somewhere. 

Well, this "bug" should have caused the transmutation system to be shut down until it was fixed to prevent any misunderstandings. It wasn't closed, now wasn't it? Oh, and it changes nothing about the total transmutation cost in real currency.

[Darkwingz]

2 hours ago, Darkwingz said:

Now let's stop and think about cash shop salvaging and how it affects the low transmutation rate. Now let's say you get 1 fabric per $10 costume. That would be $40 and 5 soulstones per normal outfit pouch attempt. It would be close to $100 per high quality attempt. It's not exactly modern era gamer friendly. However, if you up the fabric grant rate to let's say 5-10 fabric and 1-3 high quality per cash shop costume and make the transmutation chance 100%, then it costs way less. You could end up spending $10-$30 for one costume with 100% chance of success.  However, you still have the RNG rate of not getting what you want. If you ask me, the outfit transmutation system doesn't really work even if you hit that success rate. There's too many negative variables without any free to salvage aspect.

So let's say I want a normal outfit pouch and go for 3 tries. $40 x3 = $120 on a failed pouch transmutation. I wouldn't exactly be too happy to receive an email saying that I can't receive any compensation, however it would be nice to see a "You will receive compensation as soon as a fix is made, and the compensated item is agreed on." I feel sorry for the OP, and yes receiving an item not advertised as a successful item grant could probably hold up in court if it had to and you had a dam good lawyer. But, there's really no need for lawsuits over a video game... is what so many companies prove wrong every day. My point is, the only fix to this is to remove the chance of losing all your precious real money over a virtual system flaw. That is, remove the item loss and fabric gain from a pouch transmutation if you can't agree with my suggestion. 

[Hidaru]

and look at that. now we have rng boxes in cash shop. officially most cash grabby server now x.x such a shame. 

[Sprites50]

If it is intended (which would be horrible because you can't salvage outfits that drop from enemies in the game, only ca$h items) it's still a fault in the game.

The Tooltip reads as follows:

 

Outfit Pouch:

Ascending Cloud Uniform (%)

Iron Will (%)

Moonlight (%)

Red Dwarf (%)

 

High Quality Outfit Pouch:

Highborn (%)

Dark Scholar (%)

Fragrance of Life (%)

Star Candy (%)

 

So, in this scenario you should get either ingame gold back from the number of Pouches resulted in High Quality Fabrics (Which they should be able to track.)

Or the item, that resulted in being bugged should be restored, which seems to be more reasonable to me.

 

If they don't, they basically scammed you. Why? Because it's false advertisement, you're getting something that is not on "the menu". If a Restaurant keeps doing that

they go bankrupt within a week or month.

 

What can you do, if they don't compensate you? Bring it out to the world, Reddit is waiting for stuff like that, ruin their image as a fair company. Play dirty. That's what i'd do.

 

That should not be happenning NCSoft.

[Ninfu]

Blame urself for not googling this. Transmutes has always chance of failing or not granting what you want. Its pure rng and everyone who has even remotely decent googleing skills would know this

[Sprites50]

Just now, Ninfu said:

Blame urself for not googling this. Transmutes has always chance of failing or not granting what you want. Its pure rng and everyone who has even remotely decent googleing skills would know this

Nope, that's not his fault, other boxes in the game tell you exactly what you get. In this case the failure is hidden and can be interpreted as a scam attempt. In a RL court you'd lose.

And can we all stop with that "search the wiki" nonsense. A good game should provide the info ingame, not outside of it.

[GnatB]

1 hour ago, Sprites50 said:

If it is intended (which would be horrible because you can't salvage outfits that drop from enemies in the game, only ca$h items) it's still a fault in the game.

The Tooltip reads as follows:

 

Outfit Pouch:

Ascending Cloud Uniform (%)

Iron Will (%)

Moonlight (%)

Red Dwarf (%)

 

High Quality Outfit Pouch:

Highborn (%)

Dark Scholar (%)

Fragrance of Life (%)

Star Candy (%)

 

So, in this scenario you should get either ingame gold back from the number of Pouches resulted in High Quality Fabrics (Which they should be able to track.)

Or the item, that resulted in being bugged should be restored, which seems to be more reasonable to me.

 

If they don't, they basically scammed you. Why? Because it's false advertisement, you're getting something that is not on "the menu". If a Restaurant keeps doing that

they go bankrupt within a week or month.

 

What can you do, if they don't compensate you? Bring it out to the world, Reddit is waiting for stuff like that, ruin their image as a fair company. Play dirty. That's what i'd do.

 

That should not be happenning NCSoft.

 

The pouch itself gives the correct stuff.  The problem is the transmute to *create* the pouch only gives a HQ fabric on success.  The actual pouch is only given on critical success.

 

There is no indication in tooltip or anything that failure to create the pouch is a possibility.  There is only a slot for an item that, if used, increases the chances of critical success.  Most people would likely assume that "success" gives you the pouch.  A critical success would either give you something in addition to the pouch, or use less of the materials used to make the pouch.

[Sprites50]

6 minutes ago, GnatB said:

 

The pouch itself gives the correct stuff.  The problem is the transmute to *create* the pouch only gives a HQ fabric on success.  The actual pouch is only given on critical success.

 

There is no indication in tooltip or anything that failure to create the pouch is a possibility.  There is only a slot for an item that, if used, increases the chances of critical success.  Most people would likely assume that "success" gives you the pouch.  A critical success would either give you something in addition to the pouch, or use less of the materials used to make the pouch.

Where excatly is this explained in the game?

 

If there's no explanation that the player (customer) can clearly see. Everything i wrote about the puches applies to the transmutation screen. Still the same.

[WizzyD]

Like all other transmutation items. It is not 100% chance that you make the item in question. I know this from making other items in transmutation. Yes, they should add a tool tip that says "there is a chance at failure in transmutation".  Another thing they should add is the percentage stats at failure or success. Maybe even add a way of increasing those stats or a item that "protects" the item(s) upon failure. sure that makes it p2w in a way. They really should make the dungeon/wheel outfits salvageable so there can be a another option of getting the fabrics.

 

So far salvaging outfits from cash shop items seems like a complete *cricket*ing waste of IRL money. thankfully you can get high quality fabric for 30 silver and fabric for 1 gold and some odd silver on the market that other people have spent money on or failed in some cases getting the pouch. 

 

Its almost like I am buying peoples tears in this case.

[wootwoots]

using real money to savage 15euros+ outfit and then use rng to try get other

And no way to have fabric in game.

 

AHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

[Eustan]

Something is seriously wrong about this. It's like paying 10 times more than the actual reward's worth if you get unlucky.

[ElectricPotato]

On transmutes, on a fail, from what I've seen with gem fragments, you get back the item in the topmost box.

 

Any middle row components, and currency, are consumed on success OR fail.

 

These posters seem to be saying, it gives a success message, and then gives them only 1 (HQ?) fabric (they had 3 HQ fabric in the top slot).

 

On a failure, from what I know of transmuting, I would expect back the 3 HQ fabric.

 

A success that gives back (HQ or not) 1 fabric, feels wrong (we're not even getting into sources for the fabric, just what looks like inconsistency in the transmuting system.)

[WizzyD]

4 minutes ago, ElectricPotato said:

On transmutes, on a fail, from what I've seen with gem fragments, you get back the item in the topmost box.

 

Any middle row components, and currency, are consumed on success OR fail.

 

These posters seem to be saying, it gives a success message, and then gives them only 1 (HQ?) fabric (they had 3 HQ fabric in the top slot).

 

On a failure, from what I know of transmuting, I would expect back the 3 HQ fabric.

 

A success that gives back (HQ or not) 1 fabric, feels wrong (we're not even getting into sources for the fabric, just what looks like inconsistency in the transmuting system.)

Sounds like a really big oops in the coding. Spending 3 hq and 10 fabrics to get one hq fabric on a success and a pouch on "crit" success is kinda stupid. 

[SwordEmperor]

IDK what you guy doing but i buy 60silver-1gold each and Transmutes 3 time only 1 success but after i'm done reading this i still wonder if fabric this expensive where is all the massive fabric in market come from :/ i still want to transmutes more :3

[Laosduude]

Anyone sane wouldn't spend money just for this. Specially when you know NCSoft can't do shit to make your life better

[Pannon]

On 2/4/2016 at 5:25 AM, Laoshottie said:

Anyone sane wouldn't spend money just for this. Specially when you know NCSoft can't do shit to make your life better

in this case, im insane, really insane but thankfully ive refrained myself from rng boxes....after 100+ attempts....oh well, i deserved all the stupidity from that knowing the chances and items i (could) get.

[archer]

Didn't read the thread just wanted to ask if you can salvage the costumes obtainable in game (ex. tomb of exiles one) or they went full scumbag and made it not salvageable 

[Eternalx]

This is almost as bad as the RNG box issues LOL 

[Xenosaga]

Let me give my comment...

 

In many MMOs where money is involved in shop or crafting, the outcome is always 100% success. Because you paid for it. You will get it.

 

If i read here:

had reached 10x fabric(s) and 3 High Quality fabrics

 

and you got one 1 High Quality Fabric?

 

Means it's purely money burning instead guaranteed outcome....

 

And it's not very allowed RNG with money (it's same money gamble) where outcome is more negative than positive. The price is extremely high (you bought 4x 1200 NcCoins which is around 50 EUR) and outcome is just 10 EUR in value.

 

Even direct buy is 1000 / 1200 and you get directly and guaranteed a perm costume. This is good.

 

RNG boxes has lower value, 150 or so. The outcome may same or higher in value. This is based on luck, and it's still allowed, because you get always some items from it, in same value or better value.

 

But with 5000 value and outcome is just 1000 or even lower, that is not allowed. It's really money destroying. That is not what you paid for it.
And if there is indeed an error in tooltip, then company made a misleading error and has confused us with outcome chances.

Here company tricked you with money spending in game, so you have full rights on money refund.

That is because game has not clearly explained at you or wrong explained at you. NcSoft should be more careful about it and must also protect us against faults with correct information.

Of course game has some risks in losing something, but never without right information.

And if there is risk in big money loss, company must always warn before and make it very clear about it.

 

Same if the bug in game is confirmed, then you have also full rights on money refund.

Mistakes happens in many mmos, and give items back or money back is normal here. They will also remove items from the game for you you bought earlier.

[Gald]

Wow this is beyond terrible.  If they are going to make getting the pouches luck based then they need to let you salvage non-cash shop outfits.....

[Eladriel]

Main problem that i have with this is that you can only salvage cash shop costumes and transmutation can not only give you not desired costume that you want,but it can also fail. I would actually be okay of getting random costume,but considering you need to spend real money for something that can fail is total greed.

On my server those fabrics,normal ones are 5x=15-20g now i understand why players put those price cause you basically turned euro/dollar into in game gold.

 

if they wanted to earn some money they could just put all those puch costumes in the shop,this way not many ppl will waste money.

[avaricesapphiredc]

Just get rid of the RNG outfits in the transmutation system and put those costumes on the Hongmoon Store.

 

That or, un-'fix' what they did with the usual costumes that are salvageable on other servers (i.e. Spectre costumes) and fix the BOT problem instead. Isn't that the reason why they changed the system?

[IRAx]

so sad :(

[peachmd]

Pretty disgusting...same happened  to me. So conclusion is "That's what you get for trusting the in game tool tips rewards list" or "why didn't you search internet for this problem you idiot" ...  I feel reluctant to reward this sleazy tactics with any further cash shop purchases. Thanks for the harsh life lesson NC, you really care about your customers.

[2501]

Protip: Never spend money on F2P games (most are casinos built around a bare bones game, in many cases just total conversion or mod of some commercial game engine). They're meant to be free, so treat them as such. Just consider it a badge of honor that you played a more 'difficult' version of the game than paying users. As long as we all do this, it will have to stop. Govts are too clueless when it comes to the internet to do anything about it, so... it's up to the people to revolt.

 

here are 2 random articles on the issue, but you can find hundreds:

 

http://www.cnet.com/news/the-hidden-cost-of-free-to-play-gambling-apps/

 

Quote

When you tie electronic gaming to gambling and sports within the context of young people who think they're bulletproof, you have a trifecta of social and economic problems waiting to happen.

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/195806/chasing_the_whale_examining_the_.php?print=1
 

Quote

Chris found himself draining his bank account until he didn't have a spare dollar to his name -- all for a selection of pixels