Give private feedback to NCsoft?

[Xiel]

Is there really not any way to send private feedback to NCsoft? Does anyone who has something to say to you guys really have to subject themselves to the sometimes unpleasant community with only the hope someone will read it?

[Mekusa]

Just now, Xiel said:

Is there really not any way to send private feedback to NCsoft? Does anyone who has something to say to you guys really have to subject themselves to the sometimes unpleasant community with only the hope someone will read it?

You can add it on the survey you do every 2 levels. not the best but it's a way

[Xiel]

8 minutes ago, Mekusa said:

You can add it on the survey you do every 2 levels. not the best but it's a way

I was hoping for something someone might actually read in the next month or two, haha. But I guess that's something. Still, I'd like something someone might actually respond to. I made a purchase I'm pretty unhappy with and would like to be able to tell somebody so without having a bunch of angry forum-goers trample me.

[Mekusa]

Just now, Xiel said:

I was hoping for something someone might actually read in the next month or two, haha. But I guess that's something. Still, I'd like something someone might actually respond to. I made a purchase I'm pretty unhappy with and would like to be able to tell somebody so without having a bunch of angry forum-goers trample me.

Nobody would jump you here for having an opinion that's not there's....(but yea people can get a bit jumpy here lol)

[Xiel]

To hell with it; the community here seems AT LEAST slightly less awful than reddit's does, and I guess I can just ignore them either way.

 

I spent $200 yesterday on those stupid RNG boxes. /$200/. I really like this game and I wanted to do my part to keep it going for a little while longer, but I wanted to have something to show for it. In the past I've spent a pretty penny on lottery items for other F2P games and never, ever have I gotten the shaft like I did with this one. Yeah yeah blah blah RNG but $200 ought to be more than enough to get a single damned outfit, and I didn't. In fact, I got very little of anything of particular value: 120-odd boxes got me 3 moonwater keys, about 150 soulstones, less than a dozen dragon pouches, and sundry other junk. That's not cool. At all.

 

There's not much I can do but complain about it because that money's gone and I can't get it back; they've made their buck off me. But hopefully it's not completely inconsequential to them to create that kind of ill will with people willing to shell out some moolah. It's pretty clear the odds on getting this outfit that you know people wanted are abysmally low, and I just want to say that if that's just that, I probably won't be putting any more money into this game, period. "lol you already paid more than a year's sub" but that won't keep them going forever... especially if they get a reputation of dissatisfaction among players with more disposable income.

[Mekusa]

Yea that's kinda why some of us have been fighting to get them to remove these boxes. sorry

[Xiel]

1 minute ago, Mekusa said:

Yea that's kinda why some of us have been fighting to get them to remove these boxes. sorry

Most of what I've seen is just "RNG boxes are bad, period." The thing is, I've played plenty of F2P games where RNG boxes are neither P2W nor a complete waste of money. It's been my overwhelming experience, actually. A lot of people just seem mad that NCsoft wants to make any money off of them at all.

 

At any rate, you can count me among the dissenters for now. Regardless of what people think of RNG boxes in general, I can vouch from experience that these suck.

[AionCheesecake]

You didn't make the appropriate sacrifices to RNGesus, man. :(

Sorry that was a hell of a bummer for you.

[Mekusa]

1 minute ago, Xiel said:

Most of what I've seen is just "RNG boxes are bad, period." The thing is, I've played plenty of F2P games where RNG boxes are neither P2W nor a complete waste of money. It's been my overwhelming experience, actually. A lot of people just seem mad that NCsoft wants to make any money off of them at all.

 

At any rate, you can count me among the dissenters for now. Regardless of what people think of RNG boxes in general, I can vouch from experience that these suck.

They are made to get money out of people. You think I like that outfit i'll buy $20 worth that's what it'd cost. Then you don't get it and go well i'll buy a few more sooner or later i'll get it. Then you've spent so much you feel like you wasted your money if you don't keep going. before you know it you spent $2-300 on it and still don't have it. That's why we say they are bad, period.

[Enamour]

1 minute ago, Xiel said:

Most of what I've seen is just "RNG boxes are bad, period." The thing is, I've played plenty of F2P games where RNG boxes are neither P2W nor a complete waste of money. It's been my overwhelming experience, actually. A lot of people just seem mad that NCsoft wants to make any money off of them at all.

 

At any rate, you can count me among the dissenters for now. Regardless of what people think of RNG boxes in general, I can vouch from experience that these suck.

 

You're actually really going to need those ~150 soul stones and just saved yourself A LOT of work. How many Moonwater Transformation Stones did you get?

[GnatB]

3 minutes ago, Xiel said:

Most of what I've seen is just "RNG boxes are bad, period." The thing is, I've played plenty of F2P games where RNG boxes are neither P2W nor a complete waste of money. It's been my overwhelming experience, actually. A lot of people just seem mad that NCsoft wants to make any money off of them at all.

 

At any rate, you can count me among the dissenters for now. Regardless of what people think of RNG boxes in general, I can vouch from experience that these suck.

 

I think RNG boxes, in general, lead to exactly what you've described for at least some portion of the buyers.  Which is why I loathe the very concept.  Now sure, maybe you've gotten lucky in the past.  But there's bound to be other payers that experienced what you're experiencing now in those other games.

 

Note: some companies do have *good* RNG boxes.  Where the good item is guaranteed and it's the fluff that's random.  Or where if you buy X amount you get the item guaranteed at a somewhat reasonable price, or stuff like that.

[Xiel]

Just now, Mekusa said:

They are made to get money out of people. You think I like that outfit i'll buy $20 worth that's what it'd cost. Then you don't get it and go well i'll buy a few more sooner or later i'll get it. Then you've spent so much you feel like you wasted your money if you don't keep going. before you know it you spent $2-300 on it and still don't have it. That's why we say they are bad, period.

Of course they're made to get money out of people. What I'm saying is, this is not a common experience for me.

 

What it feels like people don't understand is that money keeps these games running, and when they stop turning a profit they die. Sometimes you need a little extra, because for every person putting any money at all into the game, there's probably 20 or so who can't or won't. I see tons of people on my server with no premium star and no store outfits. It bodes ill for the life of the game.

 

I've been down this road enough times that I wasn't expecting $20 to get me what I want, and while I can see why that might catch some people, if you can't tell yourself that you don't have this money to spend, how far should they go to protect those people from themselves? So far as to let the game go the way of the dinosaurs? I realize it probably feels a little early for that to seem like a danger but these people are not new to this F2P industry; I imagine they know some things we don't. Like how they can or can't make the money they need to keep a project afloat. If you don't like them, that's fine, but the attitude like they're bad or evil just as a concept doesn't seem very objective.

[Xiel]

17 minutes ago, Enamour said:

 

You're actually really going to need those ~150 soul stones and just saved yourself A LOT of work. How many Moonwater Transformation Stones did you get?

I want to say three or four. It's not that the contents were completely useless, it's just... $200? That's kind of a lot.

 

12 minutes ago, GnatB said:

 

I think RNG boxes, in general, lead to exactly what you've described for at least some portion of the buyers.  Which is why I loathe the very concept.  Now sure, maybe you've gotten lucky in the past.  But there's bound to be other payers that experienced what you're experiencing now in those other games.

 

Note: some companies do have *good* RNG boxes.  Where the good item is guaranteed and it's the fluff that's random.  Or where if you buy X amount you get the item guaranteed at a somewhat reasonable price, or stuff like that.

You can -- and most companies in my experience do -- make it statistically very unlikely for this kind of thing to happen, and while I realize that still leaves the possibility, $200 probably means it wasn't done. I'm not going to itemize my contributions to F2P games over the years but if the extent of my experiences can be summed up as just getting lucky, I need to reconsider playing the ACTUAL lottery, as I'm living a hell of a charmed life. Still no McD's Monopoly wins, though. :/

[Mekusa]

9 minutes ago, Xiel said:

Of course they're made to get money out of people. What I'm saying is, this is not a common experience for me.

 

What it feels like people don't understand is that money keeps these games running, and when they stop turning a profit they die. Sometimes you need a little extra, because for every person putting any money at all into the game, there's probably 20 or so who can't or won't. I see tons of people on my server with no premium star and no store outfits. It bodes ill for the life of the game.

 

I've been down this road enough times that I wasn't expecting $20 to get me what I want, and while I can see why that might catch some people, if you can't tell yourself that you don't have this money to spend, how far should they go to protect those people from themselves? So far as to let the game go the way of the dinosaurs? I realize it probably feels a little early for that to seem like a danger but these people are not new to this F2P industry; I imagine they know some things we don't. Like how they can or can't make the money they need to keep a project afloat. If you don't like them, that's fine, but the attitude like they're bad or evil just as a concept doesn't seem very objective.

Yea I know they need money why I bought the preorder pack and the student pack 5 extra class slots and a sub my server never had a wait time so didn't need to but I wanted to support the game also. I was also planning on getting a few outfits today when I got paid but then they added the boxes.

[Xiel]

7 minutes ago, Mekusa said:

Yea I know they need money why I bought the preorder pack and the student pack 5 extra class slots and a sub my server never had a wait time so didn't need to but I wanted to support the game also. I was also planning on getting a few outfits today when I got paid but then they added the boxes.

I tried not to imply that I thought you were stupid or anything but I might not have tried hard enough. I wasn't assuming you were just ignorant; you could know all that stuff and just not agree. But there are lots of people who DON'T truly understand these realities, and a lot of those people are the ones shouting the loudest, and it's those people I meant, not anyone in particular. Sorry.

 

Point is, from my experience I just can't agree that RNG boxes are fundamentally bad. But I do think this one is, and for the sake of others who might have felt the same way I did before $200 went down the drain, I wanted to make sure people knew it. It'd be nice if NCsoft wanted to walk this one back, but I know I'm unfortunately probably just SoL.

[Mekusa]

Just now, Xiel said:

I tried not to imply that I thought you were stupid or anything but I might not have tried hard enough. I wasn't assuming you were just ignorant; you could know all that stuff and just not agree. But there are lots of people who DON'T truly understand these realities, and a lot of those people are the ones shouting the loudest, and it's those people I meant, not anyone in particular. Sorry.

It's alright I've just been having to defend my view on these boxes for the last few days so I may be a little defensive sorry if so :)

[khynnea]

12 minutes ago, Xiel said:

Of course they're made to get money out of people. What I'm saying is, this is not a common experience for me.

 

What it feels like people don't understand is that money keeps these games running, and when they stop turning a profit they die. Sometimes you need a little extra, because for every person putting any money at all into the game, there's probably 20 or so who can't or won't. I see tons of people on my server with no premium star and no store outfits. It bodes ill for the life of the game.

 

I've been down this road enough times that I wasn't expecting $20 to get me what I want, and while I can see why that might catch some people, if you can't tell yourself that you don't have this money to spend, how far should they go to protect those people from themselves? So far as to let the game go the way of the dinosaurs? I realize it probably feels a little early for that to seem like a danger but these people are not new to this F2P industry; I imagine they know some things we don't. Like how they can or can't make the money they need to keep a project afloat. If you don't like them, that's fine, but the attitude like they're bad or evil just as a concept doesn't seem very objective.

 

This is why I won't spend any money on them. I've had this happen to me in the past.

 

* The items are not account bound, so if I splurged for some insane reason and got a bundle of boxes and got -2- costumes, I can't give one to an alt. As I understand it, not that I expect it would happen, this isn't my luck or track record, but in other games I've ended up with multiples of mounts on one toon and none on another. One reason I won't support this nonsense where I can't distribute amongst alts.

 

* There is no published % chance of winnings. Even were I to gamble at a real casino, I have a clue of my chances. My dad at an early age taught me not to gamble if I didn't want to just lose what I was gambling with -- with my allowance money, heh. And even then he told me the odds. RNG boxes that can't be bothered to tell me concrete odds can go suck eggs. I have a math degree, ffs. A color on a number isn't good enough.

 

* I got premium and some alts, and I looked at the store but because of the way the prices were structured and how I can't enjoy what I spend across all my characters, and quite frankly the costumes don't appeal to the individual races/genders of my characters right now, the store hasn't got anything worth spending money in it. So yes, I complain in the surveys that they need to put better things in the store, but not in RNG boxes. I like the game but not so much that I want to spend 200$ on spurious "chances" to win something when I know how random number generators work and I know how the concept of random works. I may not win any one of those 200$ worth of chances, and I've been there and done that.

 

They want the quick buck, they are getting it. There are plenty of people arguing that this is an "ok thing," but the overall damage it will do in the long term is not a good thing -- regardless of some of the short term "benefits" as a roundabout way to buy resources in the game to offset gold seller inflation in the economy (and I certainly don't think they were out to do that, they were out to make money).

 

As soon as someone is burned like this in a game, their spending habits change possibly permanently. Yeah the game(s) that they spend on get the sunk cost and make the profits of the boxes and reap the rewards of the short term, but it is very short sighted and not the best way to harvest our generosity.

 

 

[Xiel]

13 minutes ago, khynnea said:

 

This is why I won't spend any money on them. I've had this happen to me in the past.

 

* The items are not account bound, so if I splurged for some insane reason and got a bundle of boxes and got -2- costumes, I can't give one to an alt. As I understand it, not that I expect it would happen, this isn't my luck or track record, but in other games I've ended up with multiples of mounts on one toon and none on another. One reason I won't support this nonsense where I can't distribute amongst alts.

 

* There is no published % chance of winnings. Even were I to gamble at a real casino, I have a clue of my chances. My dad at an early age taught me not to gamble if I didn't want to just lose what I was gambling with -- with my allowance money, heh. And even then he told me the odds. RNG boxes that can't be bothered to tell me concrete odds can go suck eggs. I have a math degree, ffs. A color on a number isn't good enough.

 

* I got premium and some alts, and I looked at the store but because of the way the prices were structured and how I can't enjoy what I spend across all my characters, and quite frankly the costumes don't appeal to the individual races/genders of my characters right now, the store hasn't got anything worth spending money in it. So yes, I complain in the surveys that they need to put better things in the store, but not in RNG boxes. I like the game but not so much that I want to spend 200$ on spurious "chances" to win something when I know how random number generators work and I know how the concept of random works. I may not win any one of those 200$ worth of chances, and I've been there and done that.

 

They want the quick buck, they are getting it. There are plenty of people arguing that this is an "ok thing," but the overall damage it will do in the long term is not a good thing -- regardless of some of the short term "benefits" as a roundabout way to buy resources in the game to offset gold seller inflation in the economy (and I certainly don't think they were out to do that, they were out to make money).

 

As soon as someone is burned like this in a game, their spending habits change possibly permanently. Yeah the game(s) that they spend on get the sunk cost and make the profits of the boxes and reap the rewards of the short term, but it is very short sighted and not the best way to harvest our generosity.

 

 

 

These are all perfectly valid points and in the end it's hard to argue that I don't look pretty stupid now, but the fact is, I've done this so often that I just gave them the benefit of a doubt. Unfortunately, they made a fool of me. Just to note: I didn't buy 120 boxes all at once. I wasn't planning to spend so much money at the beginning but I knew I had it to spend, so I just kind of went the distance, thinking in naive disbelief that I must have just been getting really, really unlucky. I'm pretty sure instead that I just got really, really screwed. A fool and his money, I guess. But I can't stress this enough: I've never had this happen to me before, and it was just hard for me to believe that a brand with NCsoft's exposure were going to be the ones to take this kind of advantage of me.

[Mekusa]

6 minutes ago, Xiel said:

 

These are all perfectly valid points and in the end it's hard to argue that I don't look pretty stupid now, but the fact is, I've done this so often that I just gave them the benefit of a doubt. Unfortunately, they made a fool of me. Just to note: I didn't buy 120 boxes all at once. I wasn't planning to spend so much money at the beginning but I knew I had it to spend, so I just kind of went the distance, thinking in naive disbelief that I must have just been getting really, really unlucky. I'm pretty sure instead that I just got really, really screwed. A fool and his money, I guess. But I can't stress this enough: I've never had this happen to me before, and it was just hard for me to believe that a brand with NCsoft's exposure were going to be the ones to take this kind of advantage of me.

If it makes you feel any better some people say they spent $6-8,000 on them and haven't gotten one so bright side you stopped before you got to that point

[Xiel]

1 minute ago, Mekusa said:

If it makes you feel any better some people say they spent $6-8,000 on them and haven't gotten one so bright side you stopped before you got to that point

Jesus, really? If someone had told me that I wouldn't have given them a dime. That is just... incredibly scuzzy.

[GnatB]

47 minutes ago, Xiel said:

What it feels like people don't understand is that money keeps these games running, and when they stop turning a profit they die. Sometimes you need a little extra, because for every person putting any money at all into the game, there's probably 20 or so who can't or won't. I see tons of people on my server with no premium star and no store outfits. It bodes ill for the life of the game.

 

I have no problem with these games making a profit for the companies that run them.  But they are supposed to be cash shops, not cash casinos.  I've spent thousands on F2P online games.  But I won't spend a penny on gambling gotchas, which I (and many others) consider to be fairly predatory practices.

 

12 minutes ago, Xiel said:

Just to note: I didn't buy 120 boxes all at once. I wasn't planning to spend so much money at the beginning but I knew I had it to spend, so I just kind of went the distance, thinking in naive disbelief that I must have just been getting really, really unlucky. 

 

Which is pretty much how these things are intended to work.  I've heard "horror stories" of people in the exact same boat in pretty much every game I've ever played with these sort of gotchas. (edit:  Which is to say, it's always bought just a few, figured I was just unlucky, so kept buying more)  Now, I'll admit, maybe I've somehow played all the wrong games, and you've played all the right ones, so our view of the practice is biased by our experiences.

 

edit:  And P.S.  Bought Masters founders pack, though I haven't as yet bought anything with my free coins.  None of the currently available outfits particularly appeal to me.

[khynnea]

19 minutes ago, Xiel said:

 

These are all perfectly valid points and in the end it's hard to argue that I don't look pretty stupid now, but the fact is, I've done this so often that I just gave them the benefit of a doubt. Unfortunately, they made a fool of me. Just to note: I didn't buy 120 boxes all at once. I wasn't planning to spend so much money at the beginning but I knew I had it to spend, so I just kind of went the distance, thinking in naive disbelief that I must have just been getting really, really unlucky. I'm pretty sure instead that I just got really, really screwed. A fool and his money, I guess. But I can't stress this enough: I've never had this happen to me before, and it was just hard for me to believe that a brand with NCsoft's exposure were going to be the ones to take this kind of advantage of me.

 

In no way at all was I trying to infer that you were stupid in doing what you did. It's your hard earned money.

 

If anything you just have my sympathy, having "been there and done that." We all have our own tolerance for hitting that wall -- and I was just illustrating why I won't spend any money in this game -- or any other game -- on random lock boxes, without a hugely specific reason. One might be that I have forty dollars and I want to throw it in the air and never see it again and ... feel hugely crappy at the moment and it would make me feel better to do just that. Heh.

 

The point is, the way most companies structure RNG boxes, I have to feel exactly that way to spend money on them, based on having spent too much money on them in other games in the past. So much so that I quit the game because I felt that locking content behind RNG boxes was unacceptable when I was willing to spend upwards of 50$ or 100$ to get the content, but 200$ or 300$ of gambling would net me ... nothing. And by nothing I mean ... utter trash.

 

The fact these boxes netted some soulstones and a moonstone or what have you is small consolation, anyone is going to do the math and figure the net market value and you still lost a lot of money and it still hurts.

The boxes are intentionally designed for scarcity. And as I noted, if you got lucky, you'd end up feeling possibly just as bad that you spent a lot of money and had something of huge value that you couldn't DO anything with. People would argue that the items shouldn't be allowed on the market, but as the person who just spent 200$ on boxes, they should at least be account bound and able to be traded to alts. I doubt this is the case.

 

So anyway, tl;dr -- not trying to make you feel or seem stupid. I know all too well the argument that you don't have to buy if you don't want to, I just vehemently believe that there are better ways to either implement lock boxes and/or provide means for those of us who do want to support the game financially to do so without feeling entirely ripped off afterwards. (And yeah to all those who would say you didn't have to buy if you didn't want to, spending 200$ on 10$ worth of goods to support your local greedy corporation isn't "fun" or "rewarding" to do as a play activity any more than it is to be paid for it as a job.)

[Xiel]

No sweat, khynnea. I didn't take it that way; just admitting that if someone wanted to say so, I'd be hard-pressed to deny it.

 

For me, it was just, "I like this game, and would like to see it succeed, and this seems like a cool way to do that while also having something special to show for it." Is the outfit worth $100, $200? Almost certainly not. But looking over the shop I didn't really see a lot other than weapon box keys or premium subs that I wanted, so when I noticed this I thought at least it wouldn't be common. Little did I know how right I was!

 

In the end, though, this topic has given me a little closure, if on a rather depressing note: if people really and truly spent thousands and didn't get an outfit I can safely assume they don't give a **** about my $200. Quite duly noted, NCsoft. :/

[Xiel]

P.S.: It's nice to know people here aren't complete jerks. I tried to warn people on reddit -- and I mean warn; wasn't complaining just to complain, or looking for sympathy -- and one guy was just like "duh" and the other guy literally said he was glad I didn't get anything I wanted and wished I hadn't gotten anything at all for my money.